Monthly Archives: February 2020

Everyone knows the old saying, “with great power comes great responsibility,” and that’s just how New York City is attempting to view its new cell phone and wireless network towers. For a while now, there have been concerns about the potential health hazards of cell phone radiation from signal towers. That’s why New York has proposed a bill that would require input from citizens before new cell towers in New York City can be installed.

Unfortunately, it’s not just cell towers that may be harmful. Other transmitting stations, such as the new New York City Wireless Network cell sites run by a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, can also pose radiation problems. The city put up 380 of these towers that enable wireless internet access across all 300 square miles, which makes online usage convenient and immediate. It’s hard to look beyond those benefits and recognize that these cell towers in New York City still put people at a risk for cell phone radiation.

It has even been found that common household appliances and technology cause symptoms of radiation. Microwaves, Bluetooth headsets, computers, and cell phones themselves increase high-frequency electromagnetic fields, and exposure to these can cause long-term damage to brain cells. These items, as difficult as it may seem, can be avoided. To decrease your experience of cell phone radiation, you might sit at your computer or talk on a cordless phone less.

However, towers that are becoming common and invasive may be here to stay, and if one is near your home or office, there’s not much one can do about it. Thanks to the new bill about cell towers in New York City, you can stop new ones from being erected, which gives citizens the upper hand in dealing with cell phone radiation problems.

Cell phone or mobile towers are used for transmitting the mobile phone signals. These transmitters basically relay the signals from one tower to another so that it can reach the intended receiver. Most of us, however, are unaware of how a mobile phone tower works or how it functions. Here are some of the core issues.

Cell phone basics

The mobile tower technology is nothing but advanced radio technology. The main purpose of a mobile phone tower involves picking up a cell phone signal inside a certain radius and then relaying it to other towers via radio waves. This goes on until the intended receiver is located and the two phones are linked on the same radio frequency. To enable communication, the voice data between two communicators is encoded by radio waves and then passed between the towers so that the users can talk among themselves. When the caller or receiver moves away from the range of a particular tower, the signal is automatically switched over to the tower closest to the person. This enables uninterrupted communication. All mobile phone carriers make use of the same grid to conduct their calls, though every carrier may not have its equipment on each tower. This explains why mobile phone service tariffs differ so widely.

Cell phone tower development

At the very beginning, mobile phone towers used only a fixed number of frequencies for carrying voice data. Whenever someone called, two separate frequencies were used. One was for the incoming signal and the other for the outgoing one. Thereafter, governments across the world permitted over 200 frequencies for mobile phones with some extra frequencies for transferring data. This went on well for many years. However, as cell phones gained popularity, service providers realized that there weren’t enough frequencies for everybody to talk simultaneously. For solving the problem, the voice data was digitized. Today, mobile phones digitize voice data to digital signals and transmit them across towers on various radio frequencies. The other mobile phone is sent the information for picking up the signal. It assembles the data on the opposite end. This way the communication can be used efficiently.

Current process

Today, when we make a call via a mobile phone, a radio signal is dispatched to the antenna of the tower and lets it know that a phone intends to establish communication with another phone. The signal is routed via fiber optic cables to a wireless point. It is here that the signal is again routed to a backhaul which enables the data in traveling back and forth. Many a times, the mobile towers are connected with landlines, in which a signal is sent via the cables. At other times, a power microwave antenna broadcasts the signal through air. The wireless local loop technology and the short-range technology are also often used during problems.

Each passing day is witnessing newer cell phone tower technologies being developed. May be the day isn’t far when cell phones would be able to establish communications sans any tower.