In this paper a discussion of the detailed operation of the interleavers used by the turbo codes defined on the telecommunications standards cdma2000 (3GPP2 C.S0024-B V2.0) and W-CDMA (3GPP TS 25.212 V7.4.0) is presented. Differences in the approach used by each turbo interleaver as well as dispersion analysis and frequency analysis are also discussed. Two examples are presented to illustrate the complete interleaving process defined by each standard. These two interleaving approaches are also representative for other communications standards.