Among all consumer electronic devices ever invented, cellular telephones (cell phones for short) have been the most popular in terms of the number of devices sold as a function of time. Today, cell phones are almost as common as the wired telephone. In certain European countries, they exceed the total number of wired telephones, and in several Scandinavian countries, cell phones have become a way of life.

The concept behind the working of a cell phone is based on what is known as frequency reuse. There is only so much of available electromagnetic spectrum, or frequency band, available for transmitting a voice call with a cell phone and this has to be shared by many users. Each voice conversation requires a certain amount of bandwidth, which is a chunk of the available frequency band. In order to support the large number of subscribers, the...