GSM tower distances?

[stevey500]

I just moved up to the Salt Lake city area from a very small county in utah.. Emery county ( near price utah). I use to be surrounded by Sprint, Alltel (just disconnected from), and verizon. All three are CDMA technology networks.

Up here, I am pretty dang new to the GSM world. I know that CDMA is quite a long range from the towers, what about GSM? How often is a tower needed for solid service. It seemed as if I had service EVERYWHERE with my motorola phones on CDMA networks, literally just everywhere.. lost service here and then when up in the mountains, even good service in cement basements of my friends houses.

I havent gone down to emery yet with my iphone, I do hope that I get at least "okay" service. I bought myself a Sony Erricsson slider phone for my mom and put it on the AT&T account for her, so I sure as heck hope it works down there.

[michaelmaxwell2]

I always wanted to know how far can a cellphone contact a tower. I doubt it's far around here most apartment buildings have cellphone towers.

[calvy]

depends on the frequency. 850Mhz goes a lot further than the higher ones, like 1600Mhz. But I don't know the distances.

[stevey500]

hmm, okay. Maybe ill try and ask the same over at howardforums :)

thanks guys

[cdd543]

Yes 850mhz will travel further than 1900mhz so in essence if your network is all 1900 you will need towers with less spacing. There are many other factors such as antennas and terrain. A larger tower could service 10 square miles in some cases.

[yadig22]

really most apartment buildings have cell towers? wow