How do they work?
Domestic and business telephones are linked by cables. These cables lead up to a network of microwave and radio links and optical fibres. Mobile phones pass on signals on radio waves to a base station which consists of many antennas at the top of a tower or building. The base station is connected to a switching station, as well as each switching station being connected to many base stations. The switching centre guides the call to other mobile devices through the cellular system or the fixed telephone system.
The first mobile phone service functioned using analog signals. Due to analog signals being heavily affected by other signals or noises, it negatively impacts the results. For example when using an analog phone when listening to it, you would be hearing unclear messages. It was soon replaced with phones using digital signals, thus ended analog operating phones in about 1999.
What is the difference between Analog and Digital phone systems?
Digital/Mobile phones are also known as cellular phones, because the base stations are set up of hexagonal cells, as displayed in the diagram. The hexagon cells can range in sizes from 100 metres to over 30 kilometres in distance. The base stations receive and transmit the mobile phone's signals from the cells that are adjacent to them. For that reason, the signal then travels from cell to cell until it reaches its destination base station.
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In the hexagon diagram, the centre of the orange lines are the base stations, the ends of the orange lines are the second antenna and the arrows inside the hexagons are the direction of signals being carried.
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Analog systems have supported businesses for a long time. They are built on standard copper wire and POTS (plain old telephone service) phones. Moreover they are reliable, provides good voice quality, and have the basic features you find in a home phone such as hold, mute, redial, and speed dial. They may also be able to transfer calls between extensions. But their features come to an end. Because of their simplicity and limited abilities, they are relatively inexpensive to purchase. However, analog systems can be expensive to support, configure, and upgrade. For instance, changing the location of an extension requires rewiring a the system by a professional. Buying analog is cheaper in the short-term, but will leave you to a complicated situation in the long run.
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Analog telephone wiring |