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How does wireless technology work?
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When you make a call on your wireless phone, the message is transmitted by low-energy radio signals to an acceptable antenna site which connects with the local phone network.
Your call is delivered by the phone lines to the office or home you dialed, or by radio signals to another wireless phone.
Wireless technology uses individual radio frequencies over and over again by dividing a service area into separate geographic zones called cells. Cells can be as small as an individual building (an airport or arena for example) or as big as 20 miles across.
Each cell is equipped with its own radio transmitter/receiver antenna.
Because the system operates at such low power, a frequency being used to carry a phone conversation in one cell can be used to carry another conversation in a nearby cell without interference. (This allows much greater capacity than radio systems like Citizens Band (CB) in which all users must try to get their messages on the same limited channels.)
When a customer using a wireless phone - car phone or portable - approaches the boundary of one cell, the wireless network senses that the signal is becoming weak and automatically hands off the call to the antenna in the next cell into which the caller is traveling.
When subscribers travel beyond their home geographical area, they can still make wireless calls. The wireless carrier in the area where they are traveling provides the service to the subscriber. This is called roaming.
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