" Can you hear me ? Can you hear me now ? " If you ’re seek to use your cell phone on a submerged submarine , the solvent is no .
Cell phone signaling habituate very high-pitched frequency radio waves ( around 800 or 1900megahertzin the United States ) . They move around in a straight line , are extremely susceptible to interference and smash apart as soon as they encounter salty brine .
Even above the ocean ’s control surface , a submarine would want to be pretty snug to shoring because mobile phone phones swear on a meshing of groundwork stations , or cell speech sound towers , to transmit signals . In theory , a cellular phone speech sound might be able to communicate with a tower as far as 45 mile ( 72 kilometers ) away , but a signal at this distance would be far from reliable ; a stove of just a few sea mile is more typical [ source : Markgraf ] .
grinder must stay submerged at a deepness of about 200 to 330 feet ( 60 to 100 meter ) to invalidate signal detection [ origin : Baker ] . For decennary , submerged submarines have pass only through extremely low absolute frequency ( ELF ) or very humbled frequency ( VLF ) radiocommunication waves because signals in these very low-toned ranges ( 300 hertz to 30 kilohertz ) are able-bodied to travel tenacious distances and penetrate saltwater [ source : GlobalSecurity , Stanford University ] .
But ELF and VLF have extremely limited bandwidth , with data transference rates range from a few hundred scrap per indorsement to as broken as a few number per minute . To get response , submarines must tow magnanimous antenna cables and thin their speed underwater .
In late age , the U.S. Navy has explored new technologies , such as small communication buoys that can be launch to the surface to establish a connection with military orbiter and quantum key statistical distribution , which seeks to expend the principles of quantum auto-mechanic to communicate securely with overwhelm subs [ sources : Baker , Edwards ] .
