What does it mean when a cell phone carrier claims to have 98% coverage?

What factors influence how good your phone reception is?How much is it affected by the phone carrier?What is the relationship between the phone carriers and the base stations in each city/suburb?|||Given that you use the word 'cell', I should point out that I'm British, so I can't guarantee what I'm going to say will be the same for you, but it's worth a go.





Mobile phone companies measure their coverage according to population. 98% means that 98/100 households in the area they describe will be able to get a signal good enough to complete a call. This of course means that if you're out on the road, or hiking up hills, you might not get a signal- you're outside the populated area.





As for base stations, in the UK each company owns their own. A mobile is basically a short-range radio, just like a walkie-talkie. The base station will normally be connected to a wired network, and your call will continue down the wires from there. Some phone companies borrow space on a cell network from their competitors. This is most obvious with Virgin. Virgin don't have their own base stations, etc. In the UK, they use T-Mobile's masts - I'm not sure who they have an agreement with elsewhere. So yes, sometimes you can have 2 companies using the same masts, but on a regular basis 1 mast = 1 company.|||when they claim to have that much coverage, that is really really good service|||When you are in 98 percent of places you can still make and receive phone calls. In 2 percent of places you can't, basically they are bragging about how good their coverage is and feel that 98 percent is excellent.|||The factors that determine phone reception are the locations of nearby cell towers and any environmental obstacles (hills/mountains, buildings). Interference is a small factor, but not much else functions on the common cell bands with enough power to really get in the way.





When a carrier claims 98% coverage, this means that they cover 98% of the populated areas of the country - not 98% of the land. Although cellular technology is a terrestrial type of medium, coverage is determined by population, not physical area.





In general, if you're in a city or suburb, there won't be much difference between cell carriers. In remote areas (ie, anywhere that has 'Nxxx Wxxx' types of addresses, and small towns), ask your friends and neighbors which cell service gets better reception.