How Phones Work
- Explanation of how telephones work from How Stuff Works website
- Explanation of how cell phones work from How Stuff Works website
- PowerPoint presentation on How Cell Phones Work from Stanford University’s SLAC Laboratory website.
- The Non-Wireless Part of Cellular Networks – a short paper from AT&T’s Labs Research website
- Verizon Wireless press release that provides some insight into the cost and size of a typical Mobile Telephone Switching Office (MTSO)
- Mike Sandman’s Central Office (CO) database – search for the telephone switching offices (COs for land-lines and MTSOs for mobile telephones) in a given area (these are the central “hubs” that route calls and control towers)
- Telephone Prefix Locator at TheDirectory.org – Find out where telephone exchanges (prefixes) are located (using this database with Mike Sandman’s Central Office database above gives you an idea of how large of an area a given CO or MTSO covers)
- AntennaSearch.com – locate existing and planned cell phone towers and antennas throughout the US, based on proximity to a specific address
- Article about number portability on Wikipedia – this explains how a call is routed when a number has been ported from one carrier to another