Cell phone scanner frequencies are essential for cell phone operation.
A frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeated event per unit of time. It is most commonly thought of as a wave that goes from one place to another. The rising and falling crests of the wave as it progresses would be the repeated occurrences. If you change the speed of the rising and falling peaks of the wave, you change the frequency.
The types of upstream and downstream waves used by mobile phones are essentially radio waves. Most cell phone operators typically get 832 radio frequencies for use in a particular city. The frequencies of mobile phone scanners are normally used in groups of two. Each cell phone uses two frequencies per call. This is known as a duplex channel. Consequently, there are typically 395 voice channels per carrier.
Therefore, each cell has about 56 voice channels available. In other words, in any cell, the cell phone scanner frequencies can have 56 people talking on their cell phone at the same time. These older, more basic analog cellular systems are considered first generation mobile technology, or 1G. With the introduction of digital transmission methods about 10 years ago (2G), the number of available channels is increasing. This was known as 2G. And now we have 3G or third generation networks. This dramatically increases the number of channels.
Although the frequencies of cell phone scanners have increased, cell phones have low-power transmitters. Many cell phones are less powerful than older CB radios. This has some advantages. Low power transmission means that the cell phone can use smaller batteries. In addition, the transmissions of telephone calls remain inside a cell in the city, near a cell tower. This means that the same cell phone scanner frequencies can be used again in different parts of the city.
The cellular approach requires a large number of base stations in a city of any size. A typical large city may have hundreds of cell phone towers. But because so many people use cell phones, costs per user remain low. Each operator in each city also has a central office called the Mobile Telephone Switching Office (MTSO). This office handles all telephone connections to the normal landline telephone system and controls all base stations in the region.