Do mobile phones occasionally send out a special signal to the operator?A few days ago i was listening to my walkman with my phone beside me and the walkman started that beeping sound it makes when a phone nearby is being called,calling out,sending or recieving a text.But nothing came.So was it reporting back to base station for some reason?And if it were,dosent this mean our fones our spying on our movements?Diddly diddly diddly,did[X-Files ]

I get the same thing on my mobile, but it's because I've got the area code display switched on, so it shows me which telephone area code I'm currently in.

I noticed that the area code display usually drops quite often, and the phone then the phone sends/receives a signal (I can tell as it interferes with my monitor), and the area code comes back.

I've noticed that when going into some companies in London, that the name of the company appears instead of the area code! Guess thats what you get for having a mobile phone mast stuck on your roof maybe?

Its just to check whether your phone is on and ready to recieve calls I believe, if it gets no reply... the phone aint on!

This is totally normal for digital mobile phones , The phone is finding the strongest Signal from the nearest transmitter , and this is also a chance for the phone to pick up any undelivered text messages .

hope this helps !,


regardz ,

impz

I would not worry about your phones ringing back to base, I would worry about the tumours growing in your brain by using one

Or the radiation u get from looking at your monitor
Eating food, breathing in a city, or sharp uncontrolable objects... from... psh

Every couple of hours depending on how the network is configured, the network pings a mobile that has been silent to check it hasn't gone out of coverage. When a phone is switched off using the power button this isn't needed because the phone sends a signal to the network saying goodbye so it's only really to handle lack of coverage or flat battery situations.

The other time you might hear the familiar interference is when you are on the move. Mobile phone cells are grouped into clusters, the purpose of this is so that if someone tries to call you the network only send out a signal within a cluster rather that across the entire country. So for example if you are in the Reading area the signal will only be sent to maybe a dozen cell sites for broadcast. When you are on the move the mobile phone monitors all available signals, if it recognises that one of the signals is in a different cluster (Newbury for example) and that signal has become the strongest then it will send a message to the network with this information and the network will decide to switch the location of the mobile to Newbury.

On the radiation side of things - if you are with Orange or One2One then you receive approximately half the radiation that Vodafone and BTCellnet phones hit you with. The maximum power output of Orange is 1 watt and Vodafone is 2 watts, this also explains why you lose coverage on Orange more often when you enter a building. Anyway 2W isn't really enough to penetrate through an adult's skull... maybe a spoilt rich kid on his/her mobile might lose a few brain cells though!

The buzzing is the network requesting a responce from your phone.

Your phone knows which cell it is in and the signal strength but every couple of minutes, varies with network, you get polled by the network to confirm which cell you are in and if your phone can accept calls.

If you move cells then the phone will comunicate with the network to handle the change over.

The network does know and "can" log which cell you are in. If you make or receive a call the network will log your cell location or cells locations at that time, you may be moving.

It mainly depends on what type of phone you've got and what phone connection your on. For example I've got a Nokkia 7110 and I use to be on Vodafone. It I was listening to my walkman and my phone was next to it it would after so long ring back to Vodafone going certain checks to make sure it was working properly. Now I've still got the Nokkia 7110, but moved to BT Cellnet and it doesn't ring back, because when my phone is next to my walkman and there is no interference.

Hmmm .... I'm wondering exactly how it works then. Presumably, when a call is made to a mobile phone number, the network needs to know which cell to put it through to, so it needs to know which cell your number is in. I guess that what might happen is that it sends a regular signal out, to which every phone responds with its own phone number, so that they know exactly what phones are in each given area ..... and therefore where all the phones are (if anywhere).

I suppose the other possibility is transmitting details of absolutely all calls to the network in all cells, which means your phone simply matches its own phone number to all the ones that it picks up. I very much doubt that this happens, though, it would be a bit of a waste of bandwidth.