Cell Phones - Analog vs. Digital

matth asks: "So which is better? Analog or Digital for your cell phone? The cell phone companies would like you to believe Digital is better... but is it really?" matth makes his, in this article. Would you care to make yours?

"The point of digital is that it takes alot less power to transmit and if you've got 1 bar or 5, the signal should sound the same.. and there in lies the problem.. with the should. With an analog phone as your signal strength begins to go below 1 bar you start to hear static but you can still understand the person your talking to, though you may need to 'yell over the static'. However, with a digital system when the signal fades, there's no yelling because the signal isn't there, and packets that should be getting to your phone, just get dropped. As a result, Aunt Martha's 'Hello' on a crummy analog connection can still be made out.. but on a digital connection of the same strength might sound like 'He...o' with a gap of silence in the middle. (See my Cell-Phone Switch parody commercial on this site for an example if you don't know what I'm talking about).

Cell phone companies are boasting about how digital is good, but is it really? Analog signals work on the 900MHz band, which goes very well through houses, trees, your neighbors dog, etc. Analog works on the 1.9GHz frequency, which does not go through houses, walls, metal, trees, well at all. The question now becomes, why are they moving to 1.9GHz? The signal length is smaller, and therefore antenas on the phones can be smaller without worrying about chopping the signal from it's full height. However, the cell phone companies need to cover the area better for there to be as much coverage, especially in the city where there is lots of Multi-path (bounces and signal inversions), and buildings to go through. This is the same reason that your 900MHz portable (land line) phone will go further then your 1.2GHz portable phone.. (or it should anyway, but alot of companies are making illegal 1.2GHz phones and putting them on the market).

In addition, back to Aunt Martha, as long as her 'Hello' usually sounds like her 'Hello' on a land line, what difference does it make right? Well, unfortunately, the digital standards we have today are from years past. And while they work, they are by no means clear. If you are looking for clarity, you'll want to stick with an analog phone. For data communications, digital is the way to go. Cell phone companies will tell you that if you're in analog you won't get your voice mail notification and such, but the truth is they COULD do it if they wanted to. They just want you to switch over to digital. Why? For one, it takes less bandwidth off of their access points, so they can get more subscribers on per access point. Each analog cell antenna can carry only 56 simultaneous phone conversations, which just doesn't cut it in heavily populated areas. With digital they compress the signal and as a result can get many more people on a sectoral antenna. Digital cell phones use extreme compression of the sound that they transmit. The compression algorithms used are lossy; they're specifically designed around transmission of human voice to human ears, and take advantage of what the human ear will tolerate and what it won't.

What about the pros for digital? Digital is a bit more secure then analog as you can't hear it just by setting a scanner to the correct frequency, you also have to un-encode it from the digital, and smooth the signal out.

On last thing, the digital system works on 1.9GHz... your home microwave works on 2.4GHz.. It's close enough, you still want to hold that phone next to your head? Remeber what happens to an egg when you put it in the microwave, and then decide.

So with all that said, which do I prefer? I prefer the analog since it has better coverage, and the analog phone will keep the connection better in fringe areas. Digital phones are an all or nothing proposition. They either work or they won't. Analog phones can swish and cut out, without dropping the call. What do Slashdot readers use and like and why?"

Comments

Re:-5 Moronic Troll?

[josepha48]

Hmm the reality is that analog WOULD sound better. You have to realize that analog is real sound. Basically there is the carrier signal and then the actual data signal. Digital is digitized signal and the carrier signal. When your carrier signal goes in analog you get static, but in digital you get nothing. Either way you get H**lo or H lo. Analog always sounds better though. Look at records vs CD. Many people complained that records were better than cd sound wise. But it does not matter in the end records are on the way out and cd's are in and there is a new digital format coming to replace the old digital.

There is just no way in winning in this debate. Analog will always sound clearer. In digital you have the sample rate. This means that in a signal how many parts of that signal will I get? Digital purposesly drops parts of sound. If you have a basic sine wave. In digital you will have part of that way. The sample points. In analog you have the whole wave. If you have a higher sample speed you get more points. Live with it!

It sounds to me like he has sprint service. Sprint in my area sucks butt. AT&T is better in my area. This is not true for everyone. ASK people you know which service they have better luck with.