Why do cell phones cause noise on my office speaker phone?
I have a lot of conference calls in my office where a number of us are clustered around a speaker phone. It is one of those spider shaped Polycom devices and it used to be, that whenever we were on a call, someone’s phone would cause a pulsing like noise on the phone. It still happens today, but not as often and not as badly. You might think that we are getting fewer calls and fewer messages, but that’s not it. So what gives?First, to understand the noise, we must all understand that most cell phones emit reasonably strong electro-magnetic pulses when signaling for an incoming call or sending data or an SMS message. The wires to the speaker within the phone (or the speaker coil itself) pick this signal up and it comes out of the speaker. It typically only happens when a phone is pretty close to the speaker. This is pretty basic stuff and it wouldn’t make a very interesting blog if it ended here. The key is in the word most. What’s the difference? Why do some cell phones cause more interference than others? Why do some phones not cause any interference at all?
To understand this, we need to note that most interference comes from GSM phones (in the US that would be AT&T and T-Mobile) as opposed to CDMA phones. This is because GSM phones use something called TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) for their signaling, voice, SMS and 2G data. CDMA phones (in the US that would be Verizon and Sprint) use CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), a type of spread spectrum for their communication. What’s the difference? Well I won’t go into the details of CDMA vs.TDMA here - that will need to wait for another blog. What I will tell you is that TDMA separates the signal into little time slices, so that the phone will transmit for one piece of time and then be silent for others. On things like the handshake for an incoming call, SMS messages or slow speed data, the transmissions appear to be pulses - a burst of energy at one frequency followed by quiet time and so one. These pulses are picked up by the speaker and come out as noise. In the world of CDMA, the same power is spread over a broader range of frequencies, without the time slicing. Hence the power at any frequency looks more like low level background noise. If it is picked up by the speaker, it probably shows up as very low level static.
Now even this isn’t the end of the story. It turns out that 3G data, the really fast data that AT&T is always boasting about in the ads, is spread spectrum as well. So, your 3G phone, at least when data traffic is concerned, shouldn’t cause problems like its 2G predecessors. Unfortunately, this doesn’t impact voice or SMS. Finally, I recently noticed one more thing that I can’t explain. That is the iPhone seems to cause less noise that some of the counterpart Windows mobile devices. This I don’t know why.
Cell Phone Jammer commented:
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http://www.maventechonline.com/categories/Telecom/ commented:
This phones is branded technology it the aslo deziner set and also has grated funtions are available.
Jpolivka commented:
I think Bill is closest to the correct answer. Mobile phones emit a fraction of a Watt of RF power, and any semiconductor device with a P/N junction close to it (one-two meters apart) will behave as a RF detector.
If you have an audio amplifier close to your mobile phone, its transistors or ICs will happily detect the RF pulses from your phone, some even can amplify your voice and cause an audio feedback.
A transistor radio can also detect it, as well as a leakage from a microwave oven at 2.45 GHz.
chris sederstrom commented:
I would be interested in reading another blog entry that elaborates on the differences between time, code, and (web?) code division multiple access, the frequencies utilized by major carriers, a global geographic overlay of the said carriers' areas of operation, how the frequencies interact with each other in areas of congestion, etc.
@bill - thanks for your comments on filtering low level amp circuits and mics in hearing aids. I am annoyed enough by this phenomenon that I may try to attempt to cushion the circuits of some of my speakers.
Bordentowndogg commented:
My 3G AT&T phone does it whether in GSM or HSDPA (3G) mode- it's a HTC Kaiser also sold as the AT&T tilt. THe difference is that the WCDMA modulation used in 3G mode has a more noiselike quality, has a higher pitch where a tonality can be discerned, and is less bursty apparently. The 217 Hz frame repetition rate of a typically bursty GSM transmission is extremely audible with a raspy tone owing to the harmonic rich pulsed waveform.
ggarnier commented:
My Nokia 3120b Cingular/ATT phone would alert me to incoming calls on the Cisco VOIP phone on my desk within a few feet, but at other times as well. I assume when it didn't predict a call, there was just periodic handshaking going on with the host tower.
Bill commented:
I think your explanation is a bit off the mark. The pulses emitted by the cell phones are not likely to directly couple into the speakers of the confrence phone but rather into the amplifier input lines. They are then ampliified and fed to the speaker. They are essentially bursts of high frequency energy at a low frequency repetition rate. We in the hearing aid industry have been plagued with cell phones since they went digital. They are detected by the low level amplifier circuits and amplified. The key to eliminating the interference is careful filtering of the low level circuits, espicially the microphones, and proper shielding of the circuitry. Undoubtly the confrence phones could be improved by similar techniques.
Larry M commented:
@Bergeron: GSM phones (and CDMA phones too) vary their transmit level based on the strength of the base-station signal they are currently receiving. If you merely rotate the phone a few degrees (blocking the antenna with the phone body or your own), the power level can change significantly. This wide variation in transmit power makes it impossible to specify an exact distance to separate cellphone from speakerphone.
DK commented:
I've noticed Nextel phones are by far the worst offenders. I can tell it's going to ring by the pulsing noises it makes seconds before it actually rings.
Joel commented:
Bergeron - I've found it varies a lot by phone. My iPhone needs to sit right on top of the phone to have an impact while my former phone, an AT&T Tilt (made by HTC) would cause problems from 4 feet away.
Bergeron commented:
Interesting, I always wondered what specifically caused that. Is there a specific proximity to speakers that should be avoided with GSM phones?
testabc commented:
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