One of the most successful inventions in 20th century is the mobile phone which is also called as cellular phone. Now-a-days mobile phone becomes the most popular communication device. According to International Telecommunication Union (ITU) there were total 5.3 billion mobile subscribers up to the end of 2010.This figure shows clearly the success of the mobile phone industries. Though in the early age of mobile phones the facility of mobile phones were limited only between voice to voice communication but now -a- days this is not limited only to voice to voice communication. Today we have mobile handsets with camera, multimedia video messaging and 3G handsets. The use of WAP and GPRS( General Packet Radio Service) have made some radical changes in the society. Now using this technologies we can control the share market,e-mailing,bank payment and can get the latest news.
If we research the history we will get the below time line in the history of mobile phone:
In 1934 the Federal Communication Commission of United States begun managing the radio spectrum. It was their decision who will get what spectrum for mobile communication. This commission gave priority to the emergency services like government companies, utility services etc.
In 1946 a mobile telephone services (MTS) was introduced by AT&T which is a company from united states. At that time if a mobile user wanted to make a radio call then he or she needs to search for a 15 Mega-Hertz or 35 Mega-Hertz radio band before they could place a successful call. Using this procedure only one person was able to talk at a time and the direction of the call was controlled by one push-to-talk button just like a walkie talkie. The first mobile phone was weighted 76lbs (34 kg) when mobile phones were first launched at that time subscribers were only able to call national calls but were not able to call overseas. To call overseas they need to connect via a landline.
In the early stage of 1980 AT&T took help from the consultant company McKinsey & Co. to forecast the growth of mobile market until the end of the year 2000.They projected a world market of 900000 approximately.
In 1982 AT&T’s proposal for AMPS( Advanced Mobile Phone System) was approved by the FCC which was submitted on 1971.FCC allocated the frequency from 824-894 Mega Hertz band. From 1982-1990 AMPS was the analog service. After that digital AMPS came online on 1990.
In the month of May 1983 Callnet and Vodafone got the license to provide the cellular phone service in the UK.
In 1985 Callnet and Vodafone started their business commercially. The installation charge was comparatively high. The installation charge was about 120£ and the connection charge was 60£. At that time the mobile sets were around 20 kg weighted. For this reason this mobile phones were mostly used in the cars.
On 1st July,1991 the first GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) call was made from a commercial service. Harri Holkeri, governor of the Bank of Finland, was the person who telephoned the mayor of Helsinki to talk about the price of Baltic herring.
In the year 1993 during the month of September the first GSM 1800 Mega Hertz band was introduced in the world.
In 1994 the British company Hutchison Microtel announced the launch of “Orange” in its UK network. At this time SMS (Short Message Service) was also introduced with normal voice call.
1998 was the year in which mobile phones were more sold than cars and PC’s.
From 1st January ,199 Mobile phone users were able to view the older numbers on which they called earlier.UK was the first country to provide the service to the customers. In this year during the month of March the mobile users in UK were also able to send e-mails and got the facility to use the web on mobile phones.
First generation Cellular phones:
In 1983 Motorola first bring the world the truly portable mobile phone. The model of that mobile phone was Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. Federal Communication Commission (FCC) approved this to use only in United States. After 15 years of research and after spending about 100 million dollars in research work this mobile hand set finally came into the market for true use. The DynaTAC8000X was really light weighted for its time and only weighted 28 ounces. The size was like 13 inches x 1.75 inches x 3.5 inches and was known as the brick of its shape. Dr. Martin Cooper of Motorola took a great part to make this handset.
Second Generation Cellular Phones:
Cell phones from the early 1990’s are considered to be the second generation cellular phones and these phones were able to operate under the system such as GSM(Global System for Mobile Communication) ,IS-136 (TDMA) and IS-95 CDMA(Code Division Multiple Access).Phone based on second generation technology were much smaller than the brick phones in first generation. This all were operated under digital network which were available in 1990 in United States. The second generation networks were online most of the time and this network has fast signaling and lower call drop rates. The weight of second generation mobile handsets were 100-200 grams. They were truly portable without the help of a large and weighted battery.
Third Generation Cellular Phones:
Now-a-days we use third generation cellular phones. This is commonly referred to as 3G. Third generation cell phones arrived just short after the second generation hand sets came to market. The cause is mainly the due to the many innovations in the technology and services. Standards for third generation is different depending on the existing network. In third generation handsets this is possible to receive two megabits of maximum data rate in indoors and 384 Kbps for outdoor use. Third generation handsets also has the facility such as streaming radio and TV, as well as WiFi.
From the early stages of mobile phone from today’s 3G phone, the mobile phone technology highly developed in the last 20 years. Depending on the mobile handset services other high tech companies are also developing other services like OS(operating system).Symbian is like that kind of operating system.
