LG Wireless Phone

Why wireless mobile phones are called cell phones?

I always wondered why wireless mobile phones are called cell phones , I am sure it has nothing to do with the battery they use. Does any one Know?

Public Comments

1. cell is short for cellular, a reference that the phone has to be within a certain distance of a telephone tower that can receive the signal from the phone. The area that is the circle made by the distance (as radius) is somehow called a cell (like a cell in Microsoft Excel, maybe.) Hope that helps.
2. cell = cellular. it's referring to the towers on which the signal that they operate on is transmitted
3. The other answers are close... It was originally conceived (and is) a way to have a lot of "low power" transmitters arranged in a configuration that resembles "cells" like the cells of a honey-comb. As you move from one "cell" to the next, the phone call is handed off seamlessly from the antenna responsible for the cell you are in, to the cell tower in the cell you just moved into. If you have high population density (lots of people using phones in a given area) you can put up more antennas, and make the cells cover a smaller area. Before "cellular" phones, mobile phones were really 2-way radio systems with a large, high power transmiter that covered tens to hundreds of miles from it's location, and if you moved too far away from one tower, you would just loose the signal. Calls were not handed off from one cell to the next as you moved along.