<p>Yeah, my 6102 lasts exactly a week, Monday to Sunday. A stark comparison to my parents' crap phones that can't hardly last a day...</p>
<p>Oh, my mistake about the satellite thing...I'm technically impaired. How do they give you worldwide use of your phone? How can I call from the USA to Europe with towers? However it works, the internet works pretty well and the phones get signal everywhere I go. :)</p>
<p>well you don't have worldwide use of your phone is all, there are four (I think) bands that GSM uses, three for the US and Europe, one for japan, so your phone has to be able to use these bands to work in those places.</p>
<p>In terms of how it goes from your cell to the tower to the rest of the world, the same way it does for any other phone. The tower may send to a satellite or somthing, from there i'm not sure, just that it gets re-routed by the provider to the common telco network.</p>
<p>Go in a cement building, or a basement, you'll lose bars. Cell phone service, like light waves and radio waves, are still waves, and therefore can be scattered by whatever is around them. You don't get light in the basement like you do outside because the walls are in the way, same goes with cell reception. Except that the waves are a different size, so the amount of loss differs.</p>
<p>Cell transmissions typically run </p>
<p>Cell/Cell
cell -> tower -> landline -> tower -> cell
cell -> tower -> landline -> sat/underwater cable -> landline -> tower -> cell</p>
<p>Cell/Phone
cell -> tower -> landline --> phone
cell -> tower -> landline -> sat/underwater cable -> landline --> phone</p>
<p>with --> being switching and recieving stations</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>sweet, thanks for the clarification, live and learn</p>