Cell phone question

[burboun supreme]

Cellular phone questions:

Do cellular phones only transmit to the nearest tower, and then at
point they go down into the underground (buried) land line
infrastructure... and make the entire journey via the landlines until
they reach the desired other party?
For example, if you are in New York and use your cell phone to call
someone's cell phone in Chicago -- does the signal go from tower to
landline and back to tower... or does it at some point make part of (or
most of) the journey via satellite? And is that contingent upon the
physical distance between the two calling parties?

 

[Tomi Holger Engdahl]

Cellular phone questions:

Do cellular phones only transmit to the nearest tower, and then at
point they go down into the underground (buried) land line
infrastructure... and make the entire journey via the landlines until
they reach the desired other party?

Not entirely like that.

The cell phones transmit the signal to the nearest tower, and then at
that point they go to the cellular phone system network infrastructure.
Through that infrastructure the call goes to the cellular system
central office, where it goes to whereever it needs to go
(other cellular phone through same insfrastructure, to
normal landline infrastructure, data to Internet etc..).
The cellular phone system network infrastruture that connects
the powers together and to cellular phone system central office
is typically a mixture of copper lines, fiber optic lines,
wireless microwave links etc..

For example, if you are in New York and use your cell phone to call
someone's cell phone in Chicago -- does the signal go from tower to
landline and back to tower... or does it at some point make part of (or
most of) the journey via satellite?

I don't think that cellular phone calls would go though satellite normally.

The call normally would go most of the route though some
infrastrure in land. Most typically most of the distance
the call would go in fiber optic link...

And is that contingent upon the
physical distance between the two calling parties?

More than the distance the variations would be depending
if the different call parties are both using same operator
or different operators. If two callers are in the same city
and use same operator, the call woul dbe routed to the operator's
central office equipment only. If the both users use different
operator, the call would go to operator A central office, then to
operator's interconnection point (could be in another city) and
from there to operator B central office and to operato B tower...