

  (Source: The Huffington Post)

"It just works" -- Apple Inc.







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RE: Deal with it
By kb9fcc on 9/30/2009 11:36:34 PM , Rating: 0
Think what you want, but I have worked over 20 years in the telecommunication industry, with over 10 years just in cellular infrastructure alone. That parameter was in the old AMPS systems, it's there in the TDMA and CDMA systems, it's there in the GSM and UMTS ones as well. Without it there to throttle the load the cell would tank, and take 100% of the calls with it. All the systems were designed with call failure as a feature. That feature has other uses too, like knocking those blabber mouths off the system during peak hours to free up valuable resources for other users. And if that call was "really" important, the user will call again, and guess who gets paid twice? So, to the telco it is a feature.

The average cell can only handle about 50 calls, not an exact number because of numerous factors, but that's pretty much the max (and maybe a bit generous). That's one reason why there's more than one cell at a cell site. The next thing you do is shrink the cell size/radius so you can put more cells in a geographic area. In the analog days, this was a pain because of frequency reuse issues prevented cells using the same analog frequency from getting too close. The current digital systems this isn't a problem anymore, but there are still some limits, though one way around it is using micro, pico, and femto cells to sub-divide a cell area into even smaller pieces, but each with limited number of call handling capability. However, there are just limits, physical, RF, zoning, financial, to how many cells a single carrier can put into a given area.

Think of how many cells it would take to cover NYC to guaranty 100% call load if every single user pushed the send button at the same moment, because that's what you're asking for. Also remember there's more than one carrier, (the old A/B bands, plus the PCS bands) so there's usually 6 in most metro areas, so you can multiply that last number by some factor. You wouldn't be able to see the sky for cell antennas. And guess who would pay for all those resources, that be you. If that phone call is so important to you that you don't want it dropped, use a landline.

