Understanding your Mobile Phone   by Dave Smith

It’s safe to say that nearly everyone in the United States has used a Cell Phone At one time in their life. In fact, a recent survey pegs over 91% of Americans as being mobile phone users. Some people feel completely disconnected from friends, family and work when they’re without their cell phone and many would consider it a vital business tool that they couldn’t imagine living without. The funny thing about cell phones, though, is that most people have no idea how they actually work.

Did you know that your mobile phone is essentially a radio? That’s right, Mobile Phones rely on radio signals to transmit and receive voice and data information, except unlike a radio, it’s a two-way communication device. Cell phones have transmitters inside that transmit radio signals when your phone is on. These signals are then relayed through base stations, which are transmitter towers that bridge the communication between your phone and your caller’s phone.

The process is quite interesting, in fact. You start with the base station nearest your caller, which will give you an “online” mode, which allows you to make and receive calls and texts. When that phone calls your phone, it bounces from their base station to a series of channel towers or satellites, depending where you are in the world. After relaying from station to station, it finally will end at your base station and your phone is ready to be answered.

Since your phone uses frequencies, wouldn’t you think there would be some collisions and inceptions of calls in the mix of signals? To get a little more technical we must understand how service providers can offer unlimited phone calls to thousands of callers per city. For that, we need to look at voice channels.

Each service provider is allowed 832 frequencies per city, and each cell phone uses two frequencies per call, which is considered a duplex channel. This allows for 395 voice channels per carrier, since 42 of those frequencies are used for other channels. Of those 395 remaining voice channels, they are further separated into seven cells, which allowing 56 people to be talking on their phone at once in the same area, using the same base tower. This is known as an analog system or “1G” and explains why you can’t make or receive phone calls when you’re in a stadium or large venue. Now we have 2G technology (as well as 3G and even 4G), which allows for more channels because they are using digital transmissions instead.

To learn more about cell phone technology; past, present and future, visit us at our fake caller ID blog at Itellas.com.

About the Author

Dave Smith is a Marketing Associate at Itellas, a leading provider of caller ID spoofing services. For more information about call spoofing, please visit www.itellas.com.
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