ELI5: How does Cellular Data work?

What identifies my phone as unique to a cell tower? How does a cell tower send a unique signal only my phone receives? i.e. My phone is one of hundreds or thousands streaming music from Spotify in range of a single cell tower, how does the tower send the signal for my song, only to my phone, and how does my phone interpret only the correct signal for the song I asked for, unlike radio where I might be tuned between two stations, and hear them both?

Posted Apr 15, 2016, 2:38 AM UTC

41
Loading comments…