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Understanding Cell phone Frequency Bands

By Billy Edward


Maybe you are a businessman that needs to stay in touch with your clients even when you're traveling from one side of the world to another or perhaps you are simply someone who wants to be updated of all the news and hips around. So, you're looking for the best phone which suit your needs, are you not? But what type of frequency band will you consider?

In the US, GSM services make use of two frequency bands while there are also 2 different frequency bands which were used by them somewhere else in the world. Considering this dilemma, some of the notable mobile phone manufacturers such as Nokia, Siemens, Ericsson and Motorola created a phone which can work on all 4 frequency bands generally called as quad-band phones.

So what about this frequency band? Allow us to try to understand more about it.

Cellular phones use radio waves to transmit conversations. These radio waves could be at different frequencies. Think about this interesting record of different frequencies utilized by different types of radio services.

GSM cell phones use frequencies within four different frequency bands.

*850 MHz (824.2 - 848.8 MHz Tx; 869.2 - 893.8 MHz Rx)

*900 MHz (880-2 - 914.8 MHz Tx; 925.2 - 959.8 MHz Rx)

*1800 MHz (1710.2 - 1784.8 MHz Tx; 1805.2 - 1879.8 MHz Rx)

*1900 MHz (1850.2 - 1909.8 MHz Tx; 1930.2 - 1989.8 MHz Rx)

Even though 850 and 900, 1800 and 1900 are apparently close figures, a phone that works in one frequency band sadly can not work in the frequency band next to it unless of course added as a specific extra frequency band. To contrast, when you have your FM radio tuned to a radio station at 98.1 MHz, you can obviously never hear what's happening on another radio station at 98.3 MHz unless you retune your radio. You got it? This is actually how the phone frequency band works.

Previously, the US just used 1900 MHz for its GSM cell phone service. But in the passing years, there has been a growing amount of GSM service on the 850 MHz band mainly because this type of service is generally been used in rural areas, because it has better range than the 1900 MHz band. Nevertheless, it was also been utilized in city areas especially when the cell phone company has spare frequencies unused in the 850 MHz band and no remaining frequencies to use in the 1900 MHz band.

On the other hand, when the US began to use GSM, a few other countries with very close links to the US chose to copy the US and use the same frequencies that US used. In fact, almost without exception, all international countries that use the non-US international frequency bands have 900 MHz service.

So which frequencies are needed when traveling internationally?

If you intend to make use of your phone only internationally, you have to decide if you'll be using the phone in countries that use the international frequencies or in countries that make use of the US frequencies, or in both. Nevertheless, in all common bands, 900 MHz was used internationally and the 1800 MHz will just give expanded coverage in countries which have 900 MHz.

Nevertheless, if you plan to make use of your phone just in the US, you just need to get a dual band phone which has both 850 MHz and 1900 MHz. A single band phone with only 1900 MHz will give almost as good coverage anyway.

Summing up, if you plan to make use of your phone in both the US and internationally, the best solution is to get a quad-band phone that will work on four bands which is the 850/900/1800/1900 MHz bands.






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