How far do Cell towers reach?

for all the talk about 2g , 3g, 4g signal there is really no such thing that number letter combo is a measurement of how throttled your data connection is has nothing to do with how well or poor the single is busy or other ways no matter how fast or slow your recive or send it all still only goes as well as the raidio signal its all riding on ..

cellular service is nothing more then an FM radio signal an area agreed and set aside in the ham 2 and 6 meter band .. the signal you receive is determined purely by how near to a repeater or tower you are and the quality of the receiver selectivity some are way way better then others just like you got it some radio have better receivers then other and give you better reception and sound less static ans hiss ..

the power and modulation on the tower and phone is set very tiny (little) because everyone who has ever played with radio know what happens when more then one person try to talk on the same channel at the same time you just get a lot of screeching and noise make 2 trying to use the same channel to thousands at the same time, even though it is on FM when there is modulation there is carrier the more modulated the more power behind the carrier ..

all the boosting is done in the processing center to make audio boosted so voice can be heard :) and so yes pretty much screaming in your cell phone so some one can hear you better does NO good what so ever it only comes out on the other end as loud as the audio volume is set when the digital signal is converted to audio ..

as I understand it some companies now provide a fake dial tone because older people using them got confused they are no real cell phones cant have a dial tone because the modulation would mess up the whole system ...

anyone who has ever used radio know what squelch is , its used to quit white noise while there is no active useful communication, phone numbers are the code that turns squelch off on a cell phone some one dials your number squelch goes off your phone rings you answer have a conversation hang up squelch is reactivated ..

any how bottom line in order to make cell service work in a small frequency range for millions of paying users it has to work with a low power as possible on a very quite low noise system the more noise the more lost data equals lost calls text and packets ..

Like every radio signal transmitted, it all depends on what kind of transmitter power they are allowed to use on a certain location and the hight of the tower. Every location have their own set of rules and at some locations it isn't allowed to build towers...

Plus is the line of sight clear of buildings and other interferences? The more (high) buildings surrounding the transmitter site, the more power they have to use to get a clear signal out...

i single cell tower has a patternof no more the 15 to 20 miles depend on surounding and elevation that is not to say 20 miles line of site think of the range of haveing 4 sides that would be a 5 mile range .. towers can and do usually have repeaters to extend there range much farther so there is a need for far less towers ..

towers can be on top of tall buildings in large citys and repeaters can be place way less noticable then can even share space on pole attached to signal lights in intersections, the signal from a tower must at least have one path to the next util it can get to a processing center where every thing is tied in to a phone lines calls and texts and all go through the same lines all land line calls and data goes so yes if you have a cell phone and a land line at home and you call your home from your cell or the other way around you pay double time to call your self :)