Definitions of fringe on the Web:

• periphery: the outside boundary or surface of something
• outskirt: a part of the city far removed from the center; “they built a factory on the outskirts of the city”

I’ve lived in a rural environment most of my life. With the exception of the 25 years I spent engaged in my chosen occupation, I’ve lived in the country
over 30 years. I was an early adopter of cell phone technology. My first cell phone was a Motorola bag phone powered by a sealed, lead acid 12 volt battery that looked like it came out of motorcycle. It transmitted it’s analog signal with 3 watts. It is safe to say that in 1986, the technology was still in it’s infancy. That phone used an analog technology called “amps”. It is my understanding that the last amps service will be discontinued in February of 2008. One could only receive calls when in your home area. Later they developed “Follow Me” roaming. When you traveled to another city, you dialed a code and for the rest of the 24 hour period, you could receive calls. Code had be to dialed once per day.

Over the years, cell phones have become much smaller with much less powerful transmitters. The Nokia 6340i, new in 2001, transmitted 1 watt, using GAIT technology. Today the transmit standard is 6 tenths of a watt.

Out in the great American west the towers are 500 feet high and hundreds of miles apart. Cellular communication in rural environments is usually less reliable than cities because there are fewer towers covering larger geographic areas. Cellular providers try to maximize the range of a rural tower because towers are expensive and users are few. To maximize the range of the tower, the provider will increase the power of the pilot signal. This allows phones to receive signal from a given tower at a greater distance; essentially, the phone can hear the tower from further away. Under these conditions a phone can be far enough away from a tower to display “signal bars” maybe one, two or three, but despite this a call cannot be completed. The reason that this occurs is simple: the phone can hear the tower because the tower has a powerful transmitter that is turned up to be quite loud, however, the phone has a less powerful transmitter than the tower and even at its maximum transmit output power, the phone’s signal will not reach the tower. Basically, the phone can hear the tower but it is not loud enough to be heard by the tower, hence, no connection or dropped call.
In the major city, towers are 10 feet tall on top of a building and about 3 blocks apart. Cellular communications in cities are usually very reliable because cellular providers deploy numerous towers and transmitter/receiver stations in close proximity to each other. Urban towers are spaced close together and their range is usually quite short, sometimes only a few city blocks or less. This condition exists because a cellular provider has a limited number of channels and each channel has a maximum number of users that it can support at the same time, therefore, when the provider reduces the range of the tower the provider can use the same channels at numerous locations and accommodate more users. The provider controls the range of a tower by increasing or decreasing the pilot signal and pilot signal in cities is typically quite low.
In the United States, wireless companies subsidize the cost of the cell phone in exchange for the consumer’s contract. This is why cell phones sold in the US are not necessarily leading edge state of the art. I believe it is also why few manufacturers are producing phones with an external antenna jack.

This post is the first in a series I’ll write. I’ll provide you information about cell phone operations far away from the tower. I’m going to share the tips and tricks I’ve learned over the years to help you extend the use of your cell phone. I’m not a RF engineer, but I’ve sure spent a lot of time, money and effort trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. I receive no compensation from any manufacturer or carrier. The information I present will be the best from my experience.

Please feel free to use the comment form for questions, or if you prefer, use my contact form to send me an email.

Tags: antenna,cell_phone,range,wireless
Categories: CellPhoneFringe, Shop