Obviously, I know how to use a cell phone, but what is the process after I press call or send?
In: Technology
That is a surprisingly complicated question.
To simplify – an encoded message is sent via radio waves to the nearest tower. That tower then transmits the encoded signal via wires (electrical or optical) to the tower of the recipient. This new tower transmits the encoded signal via radio waves to the recipient’s phone where it is now decoded for human reading.
I can go into more detail but will need a more specific question
You are connected to a network of radio towers that each cover a different area, or cell. Your phone is getting constant updates from the towers so it knows which ones are in range, etc. When you make a call, your phone opens a network connection to the nearest/best tower, and connects in to the phone system(I don’t know the specifics on this) and your call goes out. The tricky bit is if you are driving or movong, the network has to figure out what to do when you drop out of range of one tower and need to be switched over to the next one, this is why you get dropped calls more when driving, and this has gotten a LOT better since cellphones started, used to happen almost every time I was talking while driving back in ye olde days, and I can’t remember the last time it happened today.
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