How Secure Are Wireless Conversations?

No cellular phone conversation is ever totally secure, although digital cellular and PCS (personal communications service) phones provide a much higher level of security than analog phones.

All cellular phones use radio frequencies, and anyone with a scanner can intercept these signals. Analog phones simply broadcast a voice conversation over the airwaves, making them easy for anyone listening to hear them.

Digital phones, however, transmit a conversation in a binary format -- anyone who wants to intercept your call will have to invest in special equipment to convert the signal back to analog form. The newest PCS phones take this process one step further, scrambling the digital data before transmitting it across a range of radio frequencies. The best cellular scrambling technology, called Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), makes it nearly impossible to intercept a conversation. Unless you're a head of state or an executive for a highly secretive multinational corporation, a digital phone that uses CDMA technology is more security than you're ever likely to need.

There's another type of security to think about: Thieves can "clone" cellular phone account codes and use those codes to reprogram stolen phones. These reprogrammed phones allow the user to make phone calls that are billed to the legitimate user's account. Although most cellular carriers will not charge you for calls that someone else makes illegally on your account, different carriers impose different liability limits. Digital phones are much harder to clone than analog models, giving you another reason to buy a digital phone. If you suspect that someone is using your account illegally, contact your carrier immediately to report the activity and to suspend your account.

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