Comment by lormayna

1 month ago

A walkie-talkie requires a big antenna and consume a lot more power than a cellphone.

Both not true.

Both European PMR446 and the US FRS are limited to 0.5 W; GSM uses four times that. There are walkie-talkies with very small antennas too. The limiting factor is line-of-sight, in any case.

If you're fine with less than real-time audio, you can get much, much smaller and low power.

  • 1) LTE frequencies are in the frequency intervals 600—900Mhz, or over the Ghz. Higher frequency means smaller antennas.

    2) 5G cells are small and very dense, this means less power consumption.

    3) LTE and 5G are based on CDMA, a technology that is way more efficient in term of bandwidth efficiency than the FM modulation used by a walkie talkie

    • > 5G cells are small and very dense

      Not necessarily. In rural areas and using low frequencies, I believe they can even be larger than GSM.

      > LTE and 5G are based on CDMA

      No, the last CDMA based cell standards were 3G/UMTS and the Qualcomm equivalent (CDMA2000 or what it was). From then on, it’s all been OFDM.

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