Understanding Cell Phone Frequencies
April 27, 2008
The inner workings of a cell phone may be a little difficult to understand since it is a highly sophisticated device, notwithstanding the fact that it is a very common gadget used by people in general. One of its aspects that is worth understanding is with regards to its frequency. This can be better understood by comparing a cell phone to a CB radio or a walkie-talkie.
Both the CB radio and walkie-talkie are half-duplex devices wherein two people communicating use the same frequency which means only one person can talk at a time. A cell phone is a full-duplex device which allows for one frequency to be used for talking and another separate frequency for listening, which means that both people can talk at once. A typical cell phone can communicate on 1,664 channels or more as compared to a walkie-talkie which has one and a CB radio that has 40 channels. Since cell phones operate within cells, they are given incredible range to hundreds of miles while a walkie-talkie can transmit about 1 mile and about 5 miles for the CB.
