# Cell Phone Interferes With Radio Sometimes

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cell-phone-interferes-with-radio-sometimes/333288>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 29, 2005, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cell-phone-interferes-with-radio-sometimes/333288 "2005-11-29T23:06:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cell-phone-interferes-with-radio-sometimes/333288/21 "2005-12-01T00:15:47Z")

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> [@Translucent Daydream](#):
>
> You are right. What we ran at T-Mobile (a while ago) was a technology that we called 2 1/2 G. We were in a transistion period between 2g and 3g.
> 
> Here was the link that I was looking for earlier:
> 
> [http://support.t-mobile.com/knowbase/root/public/tm21389.htm](http://support.t-mobile.com/knowbase/root/public/tm21389.htm)
> 
> I was told, and I am not exactly sure if it was true, that we couldn’t set up the full 3G network because the FCC hadn’t approved it yet. I dunno about that though.

I used to work for SprintPCS and before I got axed, it was announced that Sprint was going to be setting up CDMA networks in China, and according to an article on Qualcomm that I read in either Forbes or Fortune or some other business magazine a couple of years ago, _everybody_ (or nearly everybody) was going to switch to CDMA. And, IIRC, a couple of the cell phone co’s in the US are going to start offering VOIP cell phones next year (it’s apparently already common in Europe).

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**Author:** ![Drum\_God](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drum_god/32/44_2.png) [@Drum\_God](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drum_God)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cell-phone-interferes-with-radio-sometimes/333288/22 "2005-12-01T04:30:22Z")

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Tangentially related. I recently took a class on using the automatic defibrillators at our school. The device senses whether the victim needs a shock and administers the shock. It’s really idiot proof, or at least idiot resistant. Anyway, we were told to make sure that the victim (and the rescuer) doesn’t have a cell phone. We were told to remove cell phones from the area while the defib was doing its thing.

That struck me as really tough to do, since, in the rush of the emergency, the rescuer might not think to frisk the victim for a phone. Also, it’s likely that someone would actually be using a cell phone nearby to call an ambulance.

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