Carolyn N. Kinder
Advantages of Cell Phones
The cell phone is a wonderful invention and there are several advantages to cell phones. Cell phones have changed the way society thinks, operates and communicates. One advantage of cell phones is that it allows its users the advantage of a wider opportunity to communicate by a principle call frequency reuse. Through this principle the same frequency can be used by different cells without creating interference from other cells. Frequency can be used over and over. Cell phones operate within cells and can switch cells as the user moves around. Someone using a cell phone can drive hundreds of miles and maintain a conversation during the entire journey. In any cell, as many as fifty-six people can be talking on their cell phone at one time. This seems to be a more efficient and effective way to communicate. A second advantage of cell phones is that they are small and easy to carry around.
Modern digital cell phones can process millions of calculations per second in order to compress and decompress the voice stream. Cell phones have full duplex. This means that you can use one frequency for talking and a second frequency, separate frequency for listening. Both people on a cell phone can talk at once. The cell phone can communicate on 1,664 channels or more. In addition, cell phones (TDMA) use a dual band. This means that it can operate in both 800 MHz and 1900 MHz bands.
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Other advantages of us cell phones are that it gives you a wide variety of functions, for example, you can store information, make task or to-do lists, keep track of appointments and set reminders. Cell phones have a built-in calculator for math, you can send, receive calls, get information for a variety of sources, such as, news, entertainment, stock quotes, play simple games.
Cell phones have great influence in our everyday life and are convenient to have around. Cell phones are a faster and more effective way to transfer information. Some parents use cell phones to keep in contact with their children. Other uses it for business and to keep in contact with loved ones. Cell phones have played a vital role in bringing the world closer together. Indeed, it is an added resource that gives it user's great advantages.
Disadvantages of Cell Phones
There are some disadvantages of owning a cell phone. As mentioned earlier in this unit, cell phones are those in which information is sent to one or more receiver by means of a modulated electromagnetic wave. Electromagnetic radiation can occur as a result of electromagnetic waves. The wavelength of electromagnetic wave determines its propertiesX-rays, infrared microwaves, radio waves and light waves (See Appendix B). The frequency of an electromagnetic wave is the number of cycle that occurs in one second.
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There are concerns about cell phones like many other electronic devices. First, the cell phone physically has non-repairable internal parts that can corrode. For example if a cell phone gets wet, you may damage internal parts. Also, extreme heat in a car can damage the battery or the cell-phone electronics and extreme cold may cause a momentary loss of the screen display. Second, analog cell phones may have problems of cloning. Cloning means someone has stolen its ID numbers and makes long distance calls on the owner's account. Third, another disadvantage of cell phones is that it does not have the ability to provide the callers location like a land line telephone. If you do not know where you are, you can not be found, if in trouble, on a cell phone. The tower can be located, but the caller can not because cells use base stations and towers to hand off calls as the user moves from one location to another. Fourth, like all electromagnetic waves, radio waves contain vibrating, electric and magnetic fields. In free space, these electric and magnetic fields are constrained to be perpendicular to each other, and to the direction of propagation. The waves can also be polarized. For example, if the electric field vibrates only in the vertical direction, the wave is vertically polarized. This polarization will not change as the wave travels through free space. In urban areas, radio waves are usually scattered by buildings and other large objects. This type of scattering effectively creates extra polarization states in all three spatial directions at a receiving antenna.
Sometimes cell phone calls in an area of tall buildings have a great deal of interference and dropped signals. The reason is because radio signals from the cell phones and towers all reflect back and forth between buildings around us. There echoes almost overlap at the antennas, but vary on points on the wave form from each reflection caused by the differing lengths the waves travel and the effect of reflection of various surfaces. This cause a great drop in signal strength and clarity and the signal may be dropped.
Other disadvantages of the cell phone exist that are noteworthy, but do not relate to physics. I mentioned only a few of these, because of its important to teachers, parents, students and other educators that may teach social skills and other social interactions as a means of integrating the two disciplines.
There are reasons to suspect that cell phone may cause cancer of the ear or brain tumors. The more individuals use cell phones and the greater the number of years used by them, the greater the risk of brain tumors. However, the mobile phone industry has long resisted any suggestion of a link to cancer, though it accepts that mobile phone radiation does affect the electrical activity in the brain.
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According to the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), who requires the manufactures of wireless phones to notify users of health hazards, there is not available evidence that show that any health problems are associated with using wireless phones. There is no proof, however, that wireless phones are absolutely safe.
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Second, the extensive growth in the wireless communications industry over the past ten years has been accompanied by growing concern for the potential hazards of drivers using wireless communication devices from moving vehicles. There has been increasing concern over the safety of using communications devices while driving, particularly within the public sector. Based on the information collected, many accidents have occurred as a result of the inattention and distraction created by the use of a cellular telephone while driving. Americans spend substantial amounts of time commuting and members of the public place high importance on keeping up with their tasks and activities. It is fair to assume that individuals will attempt to optimize their time in the automobile by doing other things at the same time.
Third, schools seem to be getting sick of cell phones interrupting the education of students. Many school districts are banning student's use of cell phones in school. School districts and law enforcement agencies say those electronic devices are used more often than not for drug related and gang related activities. Students bringing cell phones to school have place an awesome responsibility on teachers and other educator to provide a safe and orderly environment for students because of student's access to calls in schools and especially in classrooms. Students bringing cell phones to school can be faced with too many temptations that interfere with their schooling.
Fourth, many restaurant owners are telling cell phone users not to use their cell phones in their place of business. Some business establishments and restaurants owners in the United States are getting sick of cell phones and people evading the privacy of others during lunch or dinner. People find some of these cell phone users to be annoying and sometimes disruptive.
