FM broadcasting
VHF Radio waves do not travel far beyond the visual horizon, so reception distances for FM stations are usually limited to 30–40 miles (50–65 km) They can also be blocked by hills or buildings.
Cell site
The "maximum" range of a mast (where it is not limited by interference with other masts nearby) depends on the same considerations.In any case the limiting factor is the ability of a low-powered personal cell phone to transmit back to the mast. As a rough guide, based on a tall mast and flat terrain, it may be possible to get between 50 and 70 km (30–45 miles). When the terrain is hilly, the maximum distance can vary from as little as to due to encroachment of intermediate objects into the wide center fresnel zone of the signal. Depending on terrain and other circumstances, a GSM Tower can replace between 2 and of cabling for fixed wireless networks. In addition, some technologies, such as GSM, have an additional absolute maximum range of , which is imposed by technical limitations. CDMA and IDEN have no such limit defined by timing.
The concept of "maximum" range is misleading, however, in a cellular network. Cellular networks are designed to support many conversations with a limited number of radio channels (slices of radio frequency spectrum necessary to make one conversation) that are licensed to an operator of a cellular service. To overcome this limitation, it is necessary to repeat and reuse the same channels at different locations. Just as a car radio changes from one local station to a completely different local station with the same frequency when you travel to another city, the same radio channel gets reused on a cell mast only a few miles away. To do this, the signal of a cell mast is intentionally kept at low power and in many cases tilted downward to limit its reach. This allows covering an area small enough not to have to support more conversations than the available channels can carry. Due to the sectorized arrangement of antennas on a tower, it is possible to vary the strength and angle for each sector depending on the coverage from other towers in the area.