What is a mobile network?
What is a mobile network?
What's coming up?
In this activity, we will explain two main things about your phone:
- what data is
- what mobile data or mobile internet is.
We'll also talk about what mobile data enables you to do.
Start activitySmart devices and the internet
Mobile phones and tablets can do a lot. The newest types of mobile phones are called smartphones because of all their extra features. Most of these features are about going onto the internet to do different things.
Smart devices are like handheld computers that can do just about everything a computer can, but in a slightly different way.
Understanding data
Like a computer, a smart device can display web pages, show photos, get email and even play movies from the internet. All this internet content is sent to your device as data.
How much data you need to use depends on what you are looking at. For example, a page of text needs far less data than a photograph to display, and a photograph needs less data than a movie.
Measuring data
Data is measured in gigabytes (usually referred to by the letters GB).
A home internet plan usually allows you many more gigabytes of data per month than a mobile phone plan.
Wi-Fi and mobile internet in one
A smartphone can use a home Wi-Fi network to get data from the internet, just like a computer. But a smartphone can also get data from the internet via a mobile data network.
Mobile data (mobile internet) is transmitted by the same mobile phone towers used to make voice calls on a mobile phone.
The mobile advantage
A smartphone can stay connected to the internet all the time. As long as the phone has a minimum amount of reception, it can get data in the form of web pages, email, photos and more, using a mobile data network.
In fact, a smartphone can do so much, for many people, its internet and data features are more important than making voice calls.
Let's check ...
Decide if each of these statements are true or false. Click each card to turn it over and find the answer.
Data is measured in gigabytes (GB).
Click to flip
This is true! Just like we measure power in watts, we measure data in gigabytes (GB).
A smartphone can do most things a computer can do.
Click to flip
This is true! Smartphones are just like mini computers and can do most of the same things.
A smartphone can only use mobile data, it can't use a home Wi-Fi network.
Click to flip
This is false! A smartphone can use both mobile internet (also called mobile data), and it can also use your home Wi-Fi.
Well done!
This is the end of the What is a mobile network? activity. You've learned that mobile phones use the mobile phone network to connect to the internet, and that smartphones use the internet to do many different things - even as much as a laptop computer.
Next, we'll find out how a mobile data network is different from your home network and Wi-Fi, in the activity How is a mobile network different from Wi-Fi?
