this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2025
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Shouldn't a CDMA phone have caused the issue continuously then? They have a constance radio broadcast
GSM and CDMA don't really work that much differently. Neither has a constant-on radio, they register with a tower and then periodically check for a tower.
The main difference is one uses TDMA (GSM) and the other users CDMA for voice calls. (Time Division Multiplexing vs Carrier Division Multiplexing).
Text messaging is a side-effect of CDMA packet framing - it had to be tacked-on to GSM since it didn't utilize the same connection design.
Yeah I shouldn't have said constant I had that thought wrong. I guess it is better worded as continuosly syncratic rather than time based. I guess I was thinking the regular check-in would have caused the magnetic interference every time instead of just when the connection was amplified.
I thought TDMA would have died with 2g though. We have so many devices now I would think it would be impossible to have time slots for check ins. Sounds like something fun to look into but unfortunately I doubt I'll ever have time to play with that.
Always something new
I don't think it uses time slots for check-in, just for the voice call part. Especially since a phone changing towers wouldn't know what time slot was available.
I assume the interference is caused by a phone increasing it's power output to establish a voice call, which requires much more power than a data keep-alive/get messages connection.
It's been a long time since I did a deep dive though.