Steven Shelikoff wrote in
news
They specify max power output because in operation, they actually
output
much less most of the time. They adjust the power output to the
minimum
required to reach the cell tower in order to extend battery life.
You'll notice a big difference in battery life if you normally use your
phone in an area with "1 bar" signal strength vs. all the bars lit.

Well, that's the official story at least. The actual power output IS
controlled from the cell, but the reason has nothing to do with your
battery. They could care less. It's about trying to maximize the number
of phone minutes/hour/square mile....the profit motive is strong.....

The old cells are all reduced to minicells, their powerful 500' antenna
panels that used to stretch out the miles to your trusty ol' beast, are
now reduced to little highly directional panels pointed DOWN from,
perhaps, 50-100' around the base of the old towers. New towers, the
microcells, are about has high as a tree and have a range to your little
toyphone's picopowered transmitter, which maxes out at 150 milliwatts,
now, so even if you don't make a tower, you don't make a lot of noise to
the other towers, jamming the channel we can sell to 24
users/sector/channel/tower...lots of cell minutes/mile.

More people, more money....simple.



Putting out the minimum required power is also a good idea since most
new phones are held right at your head.


Ah, I see the cellular propaganda campaign has had the desired effect,
getting the users to accept, "for their own good", lower and lower
transmitter power levels with poorer and poorer coverage that must be
closer and closer to a cell for it to function. This would all be fine
if there were a grid of cell towers 2 miles apart. There isn't so the
tiny transmitters running wide open picopower now have huge gaps, dead
zones, in the spaces the towers never got erected in for one reason or
the other, mostly to do with m-o-n-e-y.


But, all this will soon be as moot as the bagphone on AMPS:
http://telephonyonline.com/wireless/...llular_013006/
You'll simply ignore the cellular ripoff artists and use VoIP over your
wireless LAN to services like Skype, which works great, even in its
infancy. The companies, as you can see from this website, are fed up
standing in the windows of the offices just to make a cellphone call.
They want wireless phone service throughout the plant, offices, nooks and
crannies. They'll soon have it:
http://www.netgear.com/Products/CommunicationsVoIP.aspx
Fits right in your pocket....no cellphone company, really CHEAP
interconnects (many are free), no computer necessary. It connects
directly to any wifi 802.11b/g router to Skype across the planet. My
Charleston Skype phone number costs me $28/YEAR! A $10 outgoing charge
to my account with my credit card and I'm ready to call most phones on
the planet. Worked great to my buddy's cellphone number in
Bahrain....25c/min...NOT $3.49! Most of the larger countries are
$US2.1c/min and NO MONTHLY FEES OR FUNNY BUSINESS CHARGES...

Skype works great at any wifi-connected marina. If your friends and
family are also on Skype with their computers, you can talk from anywhere
to anywhere for FREE for as long as you like....(c;

If I were cellular, I'd be afraid....very afraid.

--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.