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HANDOFF
Since cellular phones are portable, they of course can move with
their user. And if the user is in a car or other fast vehicle, the
cell phone and the user can be moving rapidly.
| During cell phone calls, cellular phones always transmit to the
nearest cell-site
base station that is available to take their call. Such cell
sites nowadays are seldom more than a few miles away, if that
much. So if the cell phone is moving, the cellular call
may need to be transferred to another cell site base station
that now is closer. The process of transferring the
handling of that cellular call to the new base station is called
a handoff. |
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At one time in the cellular
service industry, the average cellular phone call was handed off 3.4
times on the average for a call. That means that on the average,
often 3 or 4 different base stations were used to handle the cellular
call. Cellular services and equipment providers of course try to
ensure that handoffs occur gently and are not noticed by the customers.
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