obviously your phone gets its signal from a cell tower but where do those
towers get their signals from do they pass data between each other or is there
one tower at some headquarters somewhere acting as a source of all the content
most cell towers are basically big wireless antennas connected to a router
at the base via cables which are plugged into the back hall of
the carrier's network so you can both make voice calls and connect to the
internet if you think about it the setup is kind of like a really big version of
a wi-fi access point connected to a normal router or modem but this doesn't
mean that towers never talk to each other if you look up the next time
you're riding past one you might see an antenna globe down to the side of the
tower that looks like a big ball dish or drum these are special microwave
antennas responsible for wireless backhaul and they're usually pointed
directly at another tower in case there's a problem with the wired network
underground and some towers even use microwave antennas exclusively to get
your phone traffic where it needs to go especially if laying cables in an area
is too expensive or physically unfeasible but the backhaul just
connects towers to your carrier it doesn't connect to your phone so
where are the antennas that actually provide your phone with a signal then
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link below okay stare at a cell tower for a little longer and you'll see
skinnier vertically oriented antennas these are what give your phone that
sweet 4g or 5g unlike the typical
wireless router antenna which blasts a signal out 360 degrees
cell antennas are usually more directional they focus the signal one
way although this might sound counterintuitive as you obviously want
to have a signal extend out in all directions from around the tower
it actually makes sense having multiple directional antennas
provides a stronger signal than just one central omnidirectional antenna a
typical setup is to have them arranged in a triangle with each covering 120
degrees instead of 360. on the side of each triangle you might have something
like three directional antennas covering 40 degrees of space each you might also
see multiple layers of antennas stacked on a tower but this is usually not for
signal strength instead it's common for different wireless carriers to share a
tower with whoever gets there first typically taking the very top level kind
of like siblings fighting over the bunk bed but the real ones know that the
bottom bunk is actually the best and although it can be hard to tell from the
ground these antennas are often tilted slightly downward and transmitting at
reduced power to reduce interference with neighboring towers
ideally this is calibrated so the signal extends to just the end of where the
next tower picks up so that you won't run into any dead zones
on that note exactly how far does a cell signal reach
well if we're talking about a 4g tower that has some open space around it those
can send a signal to about 40 miles or so
mid band 5g though has a significantly shorter range of only around 6 miles at
best so instead of very tall towers that try to blast signals as far as possible
the faster iterations of 5g tend to use shorter towers that are relatively close
together sometimes well under a mile apart some cell deployments even place
antennas on the sides of buildings obviating the need for a tower at all
and this might become more common as 5g continues to roll out in dense urban
areas but it is a shame that city dwellers might never experience the
beauty of a fake cell tower cactus thanks for watching guys like dislike
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