Re: Spectrum grows on trees
Voice streams are handled on different blocks of frequency than data streams. There will never be a time when someone's data streaming prevents you from making a phone call. Voice channels are also much smaller than data (What with voice only requiring a few Kbps for a reasonable quality voice call). If the tower runs out of channels to give voice service to newly arriving users, it will take a data channel away from the heaviest user and split it into voice channels. If it runs out of data channels to take away, it will renegotiate with connected handsets for lower quality voice codecs. And even if all phones connected are using the lowest-quality voice possible and the tower still needs more frequency, it will put voice channels into an emergency-only mode allowing only calls to emergency services. But the possibility of that happen would be almost non-existent (you'd have to move the entire population of an entire metro area into a small area for that to happen).
Some networks are set up so that if a cell gets overwhelmed, it will reduce its power and adjacent, less used towers will increase their power levels so their channels can be used to handle the additional load.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
