How mobile phones work

A mobile phone is actually a very advanced and complicated radio. When you talk into a mobile phone, it converts the sound of your voice into radio waves. These waves travel through the air until they reach a receiver at a nearby base station (owned by the mobile network operator). The base station then sends your call through the telephone network until it reaches a base station near the person you are calling. That base station sends out radio waves that are detected by a receiver in the recipient's telephone, where the signals are changed back into voice or data. The sound quality of the call depends on the ability of the two phones to send and receive signals from the base stations. Today the voice function is the least of a mobile phone's capabilities. Mobile phones may support services such as SMS (Short Message Service – for text messaging), email, internet browsing, video and still cameras, MMS (Multimedia Message Service – for sending and receiving photos and videos), MP3 players, FM radio, and even access to the internet.