In the last decade, the internet has become a critical thing in our daily lives. However, in the past few years, our interaction with it has become constant. The internet is a complex system by itself, on some occasions, we could find ourselves with some issues and start questioning the reasons behind it.
The purpose of this article is to give you an explanation of some of the most common problems.
Data coverage in certain areas
First of all we have to understand how our phones receives the data and the physics behind it.
Our phones send and receive information using radio waves through tower cells that connect us to the Internet. Keep this concept in mind, because it will help you to understand the physics behind it and the reason why we have some issues with our data.
When we are in a call with someone what our phone do is, convert our voices into radio waves and send it to nearest tower cell and it relay that signal. In this part of the process is where most of the problems come.
When waves travel through matter, they lose some energy to the matter as they pass through in this case, the air. And some materials can block, or interfere with, radio waves.
For example, if you are in a wooded area probably you are going to have some issues getting good signal because of the woods blocking the radio waves.
Another example is when we are in a rural area and we have a weak signal. ¿Why does it happen? Because the more distance radio waves travels it loses energy and thus we have a bad data coverage.
Wireless signals outside the home or building can be affected by rainfall as water droplets can partially absorb the signal, which may cause in a lower level of coverage.
Recommendations:
-The most common issue with data coverage is that our internet o data providers doesn’t have enough cell towers to cover a certain. What we suggest is do some research about the areas that your data provider have and look for options, so that when you travel to a certain area you have signal on your phone.
-If you are outside and you don’t have a good signal on your phone try to move to an open area that doesn’t have things that could block the signal such as walls and trees.
Internet drop when it rain
We all love rain. Or not? In any case, is no mystery that when rains in some occasions our internet service drops and it could be for a brief period of time or for a very long time depending on the damage
Rain can cause physical damage to cables, particularly where telecommunication networks are using old infrastructure.
ADSL-style connections, which use the old phone network, are particularly vulnerable to this type of interference.
Delays
Have ever happened to you. That you are talking with your friend or looking at something on the internet and you have a delay in getting an instantaneous answer, well, there are some reasons for that.
We have to be clear on something,” instantaneously ” is not a fact. When we look for something on Google, for example, there is a large and complex process before that occurs when we look for something.
Let me explain:
If you’re driving and you want to know where you are, you use Google maps. To know your location, four satellites are needed to figure out your position. These satellites are at a very high altitude in space at 20,200 kilometers, so the signal from the satellite has a long way to go.
Another example, if you are on a call with your friend, will be a minimum delay in the call. Why does it happen? Because the signal goes to a cell tower or a router that relay that signal using cables until the signal arrives at your phone
Conclusions
Most of these problems are out of our control. Most of them happen not because of an engineering problem but rather of how physics works. Knowing the reasons behind these problems could help us to get a solution to that. Constant research and knowing how our world works are the most powerful tools to address our problems.
