For many people, the mobile phone is the primary and sole method for personal communication. But how many people actually understand what all is involved in cellular communication? Let’s start with why we refer to this conglomerate of technologies as “cell” technology. This has nothing to do with a biological cell, mind you; it’s simply a concept and framework for describing the gist of this notion. The gist is that, instead of a completely wired network of communications pipelines, what you have instead are wireless radio transmitters, repeaters, switches, and other networking hardware that really operate on a per region basis.
These regions are “cells.” So, when a particular wireless company says that they can provide to you mobile communications throughout the state, what they’re really saying is that they have a cellular communication network of wireless hardware that can cover you in certain parts of the state. It’s a network of cells. And when you travel from one zip code to another, you’re being handed off from one cell to another. This “hand off” actually produces a serious problem for users: dropped calls. Contrary to popular belief, a dropped call isn’t the result of high traffic or their being low reception or “low signal.” Instead, what really happens about 90% of the time is that handing off of your call is fumbled by any of the pieces of networking equipment that was mentioned earlier. This is why most of the dropped mobile communication sessions occur on the perimeter of cells, on the outer edges of cells. You might have “4 bars,” yet get a dropped call, and it’s all because of that relaying of your call from that cell that you’re on now, to the cell that you were supposed to be transferred to.
It’s a delicate process, and it’s something that needs to happen in an exact way, otherwise that call will get dropped. Fortunately, though, cellular communication technologies are improving. There are redundancies that are being built into these networks that lower the chances of these things happening. But because calls are practically being tossed into midair from one cell to another, it’s invariably that dropped calls will occur. Does this mean that cellular communication isn’t suitable for most people? Not at all; it is a bother and a huge concern for mobile services companies, but on the whole, these firms do more good than harm. So, what can we expect from these companies going forward? Well, there are a number of exciting innovations that are coming down the pipe as we speak. The bandwidth that these networks are capable of is increasing and growing at exponential rates. You’ll see video and other media becoming easier to consume from mobile devices.
