Phones and Smartphones

Phones were originally cell phones.

Each cellular network had a number of towers that provided coverage over the area around it, called a cell. Each phone and each tower had a radio transmitter and receiver tuned to the same send and receive frequencies. They worked together. These were all low-power devices and could only communicate over short distances of about 50 miles.

Each network had a central computer that kept track of where each phone was, and who each phone wanted to talk to on the network. It kept track of all these conversations and kept them separated. Quite a job, but the Computer could do it easily!

The cellular network did not exist before the computer existed. After it was there, some smart computer people thought up the cellular idea, which made a lot of money for them. Users could travel between cells, and not be aware of all the switching being done for them by the network.

At the same time, the Internet was invented and became very important. It became obvious that the two networks needed to work together. So the phones were modified to do this and became smartphones!

The whole world became one network, and phones became cheap.