Carolyn N. Kinder
The major component of the cell phone system is the cell. The cell phone system divides an area of service into a set of cells on what might look like a hexagonal grid. A phone tower or base station in the center of the cell covers an area of 2 or 3 square miles around the tower. Cell phones transmit to towers, which then connects you to the normal land based telephone system to route the call. In other words, a handoff has to happen when you move from one cell to another. A typical large city has hundreds of towers and each carrier in each city runs what is called a central office, known as the mobile telephone switching office (MTSO). For example, as you drive from one city to another every couple of miles, the system hands off to another cell. You don't realize that is happening because it is not noticeable. Let us look at what happens when someone calls you.
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First, when you power up the phone, it listens for special frequencies (control channel) that the phone and tower use to talk to one another. If there are no control channels, the phone displays a message –no service, because it knows it is out of range. Second, the phone transmits a registration request, so that the MTSO keeps track of your phone location in the data base. It is important for the MTSO to know which cell you are in when it wants to ring your phone. Third, the MTSO gets the call, and it tries to find you by looking into the database to see which cell you are in. Fourth, the MTSO chooses a frequency pair that your phone will use in that cell to take the call. Fifth, the MTSO communicates with your phone over the control channel to tell it what frequencies to use and when your phone and the tower switch on those frequencies, you are connected and talking. And sixth, as you move toward the edge of the cell, the cell tower notes a diminishing signal. The diminishing signal indicates that it is time for the control channel to hands off you to the next cell.
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