- As a mobile instrument proceeds from one cell to another during the course of a call, a central controller automatically reroutes the call from the old cell to the new cell without a noticeable interruption in the signal reception. This process is known as handoff.
- As demand for the radio channels within a given cell increases beyond the capacity of that cell, the overloaded cell is “split” into smaller cells, each with its own base station and central controller.
| Frequency reuse between discontiguous cells and the splitting of cells as demand increases are the concepts that distinguish cellular systems from other wireless telephone systems. They allow cellular providers to serve large metropolitan areas that may contain hundreds of thousands of customers. |
The figure below shows the major characteristics of mobile network generations:
