If you travel outside your home area and make a call, another wireless carrier may provide service for your wireless phone. That provider sends a signal back to your home network, so you can send and receive calls as you travel. This is called roaming. Roaming is key to mobile communications, as wireless providers cooperate to provide callers service wherever they go.

Because the shape and size of cells vary, there may also be empty spaces between the coverage areas of two or more cells. These gaps or dead spots can also be caused by trees, tall buildings or other obstructions that block your wireless signal from reaching a nearby antenna. If a local government or landowner won't allow placement of a wireless antenna, that too creates a dead spot.

Doing More With Data
A wireless phone is actually a computer connected to a radio. Thus, it works much like your personal computer does to send and receive information. Digital technology is used to convert data, such as short messages, e-mail or digital pictures, into small packets of 0's and 1's. These packets are also transmitted securely over wireless systems.

As the wireless industry converts to packet-based networks, utilizing the same technology as the Internet, wireless data services continue to expand. Today wireless networks operate at data speeds five to ten times greater than dial-up telephone or earlier wireless networks. New networks will offer even greater speeds, equivalent to DSL and beyond.

These faster networks mean that Internet services formerly available only on desktop PCs are becoming available anywhere, in the palm of your hand, as a result of digital wireless technology.

CTIA-The Wireless Association® is the international voice of the wireless industry, representing members in all areas of wireless communications.

How Wireless Works Brochure




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