I get how the phone can download from the cell tower, because cell sites use 20-50W directional antennas, much more powerful than the phone, so they can cover a large area.
But the phone’s antenna is omnidirectional, usually 1W max. That’s as powerful as a Wi-Fi access point. So how can it reach the cell site 2 miles away? Is it because cell site antennas have high gain, so they can pick up a very faint signal?
In: 70
Really what’s going on is the cell tower has just a lot of tech that makes it really good at cleaning up the noise in your signal and boosting it. You might think because the cell tower is transmitting at much higher power it has much higher range than your phone, but honestly transmit power falls off at a rate of the square of the distance between you and the entity receiving so it’s not a huge deal.
Latest Answers