We see a cell tower activation map representing voice calls that Rhodes made from Jan 3 to Jan 5, traveling from his home in Granbury, TX to Washington DC.
Def attorney Linder asks: if someone is standing in DC broadcasting something on FB, is that using your data network? Agent Banks: when you open a data session it could last six hours before it opens and closes.... you need to be in the footprint of another tower.
In a data sesh that is 6 hours long, depending on providers, you may move through several cell sites. The provider doesn't give agency info on when exactly you hit a new tower. but Agent Banks reminds Linder this is a voice call map of Rhodes’s device.
So, Linder asks, if Rhodes was standing 500 yards west of the Capitol and then he had an hour-long call where he walked half a mile, would it show the call connected to the originating tower?
Would the same be true for social media broadcasting?
Banks says if you initiate that data session and it lasts a long time, you can only see the initiating cell site. This is just for Verizon though AT&T is different; they maintain cell site data for text messages.
Linder asks if there are a half a million people spread over a few square blocks, is it possible that some calls may not be connected?
(This is central to Rhodes’s defense)
Banks says if you're in an area with many people, the tower's signal doesn't change.
The strongest clearest signal is the one you will use when receiving or making a call. If there's a lot of traffic, and your strongest signal is too busy, you'll just have to keep redialing, the connection won’t work.
As soon as you get into that traffic channel, it'll push you to another available tower.