A cell phone is an essential element of our daily life for most of us. In any case, I'm sure you've always wondered how a mobile phone makes a call and why there are so many distinct kinds of mobile communications.
Learn more about how mobile phones communicate. The
microphone on your phone picks up your voice when you talk into it. The
microphone uses a MEMS sensor and an IC to convert your voice into a digital
signal. Your voice can be heard in the digital stream as a series of zeros and
ones. These 0s and 1s are received by an antenna inside the phone and then
transmitted as electromagnetic waves. Zeros and ones are transmitted by
changing the wave's amplitude, frequency, phase or combinations of these
characteristics. By using low and high frequencies, zero and one are conveyed,
for example. It would be possible to make a call if you could transmit these
electromagnetic waves to your friend's phone. Electromagnetic waves, on the
other hand, have a limited range. Environmental considerations such as the
presence of physical items or electrical equipment reduces their power. Due to
the Earth's curved structure, even if there were no such concerns,
electromagnetic waves would not be able to continue forever. Using the cellular
technology concept, cell towers were introduced to address these challenges. An
area is divided into hexagonal cells for cellular technology, with a tower and
frequency slot for each cell.
Optical fiber cables are typically used to connect these
cell towers to each other. In order to enable national or worldwide
connectivity, these optical fiber cables are buried under the ground or in the
oceans. The cell tower in your area picks up the EM waves from your phone and
converts them into high-frequency light pulses. The base transceiver box at the
foot of the tower receives and processes these light pulses. After processing,
your speech signal is sent to the tower where you want to hear it. The
destination tower receives the pulses and then emits electromagnetic waves,
which are picked up by your friend's phone. Your friend hears your voice as a
result of this signal going through a reverse process. There is a wired
component to mobile communications, thus it's true that they are not completely
wireless. To put it simply, this is how mobile communications work. However, we
deliberately left a major question unsolved. When your tower sends a signal to
your friend's tower, the communication is successful. The question is, how does
your tower know which cell tower region your friend is located in? Well, the
cell tower relies on a mobile switching center for this task. In a cellular
network, the MSC serves as the aggregation point. Let us first take a closer
look at the MSC. When you buy a SIM card, all of your subscription information
is registered with a specific MSC (Mobile Subscriber Identity).
This MSC is where you'll call home. Information such as
service plans, current location, and activity status are all stored in the home
MSC. Foreign MSCs are used to refer to MSCs that serve you outside of your home
MSC's service area. Entering another MSC region requires communication with
your primary MSC. Your home MSC is always aware of where you are in the MSC
system. There are a variety of methods used by the MSC to detect which cell
location a subscriber is in inside the MSE. After a predetermined amount of
time, you can update the location of your subscribers. The phone's location is
updated every time it crosses a predetermined number of towers. The final one
is when the phone is turned on. For the sake of clarity, let's look at an
actual example of each of these steps. Say Emma asks to speak with John. As
soon as Emma dialed John's phone number, a call request was sent to Emma's MSC.
The request will be sent to John's home MSC after receiving John's phone
number. For the time being, John's MSC is verifying his current MSC. As long as
John is in his home MSC, the call requests will be forwarded to his current
cell location, where they'll be checked against any other calls John is
currently on or whether or not his mobile phone has been turned off. Everything
is going to go according to plan if John's phone rings and the connection is
successfully connected. Nevertheless, if John is not in his local MSC, the call
request is simply forwarded to the foreign MSC.
The foreign MSC will use the previously described technique
to locate John's phone and will then make the call with him on the phone. The
importance of the frequency spectrum in mobile phone communication will now be
discussed. The frequency ranges allotted to each digital communication
subscriber are used to transmit zeros and ones. Despite this, there are
billions of cellular phone users squeezing into a little amount of frequency band.
Two technologies come together to address this problem: frequency slot
distribution and two methods of multiple access. In the first method, each cell
tower has a unique frequency slot given to it. This frequency slot is
effectively shared by all of the active users in the cell area when using the
multiple-access approach.
Finally, we arrive at the crux of the matter. Is it because
there are so many distinct types of mobile phone technology? Users were able to
carry a phone without a cord for the first time when 1G was released. However,
1G had two fundamental flaws.
In the beginning, there was an issue with the analog
wireless transmissions. External sources can easily modify analog signals. So,
it had a poor quality of speech and a low level of security. Using frequency
division multiple access, which is inefficient in using available spectrum, was
another issue. As a result of these circumstances, the second generation of
mobile communications was born. TDMA and CDMA technologies were employed in the
2G network.
SMS and internet browsing were also pioneered by the second
generation. A major goal of 3G technology was to increase data transfer speeds.
WCD multiple access and increased bandwidth were employed. The 3G speed of two
Mbps enabled for the transfer of data for applications such as GPS, movies,
phone calls, and so on. 3G was a major milestone in the evolution of the
smartphone from a simple phone to a high-end device. Then came 4G, with its 20
to 100 Mbps download and upload rates. High-definition movies and television
might use this. OFD multiple access and MIMO technology allowed for this
increase in speed. Multi-antenna mobile phones and cell towers are used in MIMO
technology to increase data transfer speeds.
Millimeter waves and upgraded MIMO technology will be used
in the upcoming 5G mobile communication system. It will enable the internet of
things, such as driverless cars and smart homes, to function smoothly. Want to
know how a touchscreen works? Read on. Pay attention to this. Please accept my
sincere appreciation.