How is my phone able to upload to cell towers that are miles away with its tiny 1W omnidirectional antenna?

Question

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

Answer 1

Cell phone towers have ***much*** larger antennas and much more power available for signal amplification and processing compared to a handheld phone. They also tend to use a number of directional antennas to pick up signals from all directions, which helps their performance.