Mobile phone

A mobile phone, cell phone, cellphone, or hand phone, sometimes shortened

to simply mobile, cell or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and
receive calls over a radio frequency link while the user is moving within a telephone
service area. The radio frequency link establishes a connection to the switching
systems of a mobile phone operator, which provides access to the public switched
telephone network (PSTN). Modern mobile telephone services use a cellular
network architecture, and, therefore, mobile telephones are called cellular
telephones or cell phones

PRINCIPLE:

Cell phone is a two-way radio, consisting of a radio transmitter and a radio

receiver. When you chat with your friend on your cell phone, your phone converts your
voice into an electrical signal, which is then transmitted via radio waves to the
nearest cell tower. The network of cell towers then relays the radio wave to your
friend’s cell phone, which converts it to an electrical signal and then back to sound
again. In the basic form, a cell phone works just like a walkie-talkie.

In additional to the basic function of voice calls, most modern cell phones come
with additional functions such as web surfing, taking pictures, playing games, sending
text messages and playing music. More sophisticated smart phones can perform similar
functions of a portable computer.

Radio Waves

Cell phones use radio waves to communicate. Radio waves transport

digitized voice or data in the form of oscillating electric and magnetic fields, called
the electromagnetic field (EMF). The rate of oscillation is called frequency. Radio waves
carry the information and travel in air at the speed of light.

Cell phones transmit radio waves in all directions. The waves can be absorbed and
reflected by surrounding objects before they reach the nearest cell tower. For example,
when the phone is placed next to your head during a call, a significant portion (over half
in many cases) of the emitted energy is absorbed into your head and body. In this event,
much of the cell phone’s EMF energy is wasted and no longer available for
communication.
Antenna

Cell phones contain at least one radio antenna in order to transmit

or receive radio signals. An antenna converts an electric signal to the radio wave
(transmitter) and vice versa (receiver). Some cell phones use one antenna as the
transmitter and receiver while others, such as the iPhone 5, have multiple transmitting
or receiving antennas.

An antenna is a metallic element (such as copper) engineered to be a specific size and

shape for transmitting and receiving specific frequencies of radio waves. While
older generation cell phones have external or extractable antennas, modern cell phones
contain more compact antennas inside the device thanks to advanced antenna
technologies.

Many modern smart phones also contain more than one type of antenna. In addition to
the cellular antenna, they may also have Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and/or GPS antennas.

Connectivity

A cell phone is a two-way wireless communication device and needs

both the inbound signal (reception) and the outbound signal (transmission) to work.
The magnitude of the received signal from the cell tower is called the “signal
strength”, which is commonly indicated by the “bars” on your phone. The connectivity
between a cell phone and its cellular network depends on both signals and is affected by
many factors, such as the distance between the phone and the nearest cell tower, the
number of impediments between them and the wireless technology (e.g. GSM vs.
CDMA). A poor reception (fewer bars) normally indicates a long distance and/or much
signal interruption between the cell phone and the cell tower.

In order to conserve battery life, a cell phone will vary the strength of its
transmitted signal and use only the minimum necessary to communicate with the
nearest cell tower. When your cell phone has poor connectivity, it transmits a stronger
signal in order to connect to the tower, and as a result your battery drains faster. That’s
why good connectivity not only reduces dropped calls, but also saves battery life.
Digital Signals
In the beginning, mobile phones used two whole frequencies for conversations.
However, as the number of mobile phone users grew, the mobile providers realized they
would soon run out of frequencies, so digital signals were introduced. These digitals
signals encode sound data in binary and send the data in packets, using multiple
frequencies at once. The packets are decoded and turned back into sound by the
receiving mobile phone. This allows companies to save frequency space and time.
Coverage Areas
Each mobile provider has a certain coverage area, or a grid of mobile phone
towers that have their equipment, so they can relay mobile signals. If a user steps
outside this grid, the phone will either not work or go into roaming, trying to use other
equipment from different companies instead of the original technology it was designed
for. This is one reason roaming is more expensive than regular cell phone coverage fees.

Handoff
In cellular telecommunications, the terms handover or handoff refer to the
process of transferring an ongoing call or data session from one channel
connected to the core network to another channel.
when the phone is moving away from the area covered by one cell and entering
the area covered by another cell the call is transferred to the second cell in order to
avoid call termination when the phone gets outside the range of the first cell;
when the capacity for connecting new calls of a given cell is used up and an
existing or new call from a phone, which is located in an area overlapped by another
cell, is transferred to that cell in order to free-up some capacity in the first cell for other
users, who can only be connected to that cell;
Services offered

In addition to telephony, mobile phones support a variety of other services, such

as text messaging, MMS, email, Internet access, short-range wireless communications
(infrared, Bluetooth), business applications, video games, and digital photography.

Types

Mobile phones offering only those telephony capabilities are known as feature
phones; mobile phones which offer greatly advanced computing capabilities are
referred to as smartphones.
Operation

Mobile phones communicate with cell towers that are placed to give coverage
across a telephone service area which is divided up into 'cells'. Each cell uses a different
set of frequencies from neighbouring cells and will typically be covered by 3 towers
placed at different locations. The cell towers are usually interconnected to each other
and the phone network and the internet by wired connections. Due to bandwidth
limitations each cell will have a maximum number of cell phones it can handle at once.
The cells are therefore sized depending on the expected usage density and may be much
smaller in cities. In that case much lower transmitter powers are used to avoid
broadcasting beyond the cell.
In order to handle the high traffic, multiple towers can be setup in the same area
(using different frequencies). This can be done permanently or temporarily
Cellular can greatly increase the capacity of simultaneous wireless phone calls. While a
phone company for example, has a license to 1000 frequencies, each cell must use
unique frequencies with each call using one of them when communicating. Because cells
only slightly overlap, the same frequency can be reused. Example cell 1 uses frequency
1-500, next door cell uses frequency 501-1000, next door can reuse frequency 1-500.
Cells 1 and 3 are not "touching" and do not overlap\communicate so each can reuse the
same frequencies.

This is even more greatly increased when phone companies implemented digital
networks. With digital, one frequency can host multiple simultaneous calls increasing
capacity even more.
As a phone moves around, a phone will "hand off" - automatically disconnect and
reconnect to the tower of another cell that gives the best reception.
Additionally, short-range Wi-Fi infrastructure is often used by smartphones as much as
possible as it offloads traffic from cell networks on to local area networks.
Hardware
The common components found on all phones are:

 A CPU, the processor of phones.

 A battery, providing the power source for the phone functions.
 An input mechanism to allow the user to interact with the phone. These are
a keypad for feature phones and touch screens for most smartphones.
 A display which echoes the user's typing, and displays text messages, contacts, and
more.
 Speakers for sound.
 SIM cards and R-UIM cards.
Low-end mobile phones are often referred to as feature phones and offer basic
telephony. Handsets with more advanced computing ability through the use of native
software applications are known as smartphones.
Software
 Software platforms
Feature phones have basic software platforms.
Smartphones have advanced software platforms.
 Mobile app
A mobile app is a computer program designed to run on a mobile device, such as a
smartphone. The term "app" is a shortening of the term "software application".
 Messaging
 Application stores