History of mobile phones
fraud and the charge was then dropped, but they do not
A man talks on his mobile phone while standing near a conven-
tional telephone box, which stands empty. Enabling technology
for mobile phones was first developed in the 1940s but it was
not until the mid 1980s that they became widely available. By
2011, it was estimated in the United Kingdom that more calls
were made using mobile phones than wired devices.[1]
This history focuses on communication devices which
connect wirelessly to the public switched telephone net-
work. The transmission of speech by radio has a long
and varied history going back to Reginald Fessenden's
invention and shore-to-ship demonstration of radio tele-
phony. The first mobile telephones were barely portable
compared to today’s compact hand-held devices. Along
with the process of developing more portable technol-
ogy, drastic changes have taken place in the networking
of wireless communication and the prevalence of its use.
1 Predecessors
Before the devices that are now referred to as mobile
phones existed, there were some precursors. In 1908 a
Professor Albert Jahnke and the Oakland Transcontinen-
tal Aerial Telephone and Power Company claimed to have
developed a wireless telephone. They were accused of
1
seem to have proceeded with production.[2] Beginning
in 1918 the German railroad system tested wireless tele-
phony on military trains between Berlin and Zossen.[3] In
1924, public trials started with telephone connection on
trains between Berlin and Hamburg. In 1925, the com-
pany Zugtelephonie A. G. was founded to supply train
telephony equipment and in 1926 telephone service in
trains of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and the German mail
service on the route between Hamburg and Berlin was
approved and offered to 1st class travelers.[4]
Karl Arnold drawing of public use of mobile telephones
In 1907, the English caricaturist Lewis Baumer published
a cartoon in Punch magazine entitled “Predictions for
1907” in which he showed a man and a woman in Lon-
don’s Hyde Park each separately engaged in gambling and
dating on wireless telephony equipment. Then in 1926
the artist Karl Arnold created a visionary cartoon about
the use of mobile phones in the street, in the picture
“wireless telephony”, published in the German satirical
magazine Simplicissimus.[5]
The portrayal of a utopia of mobile phone in literature
dates back to the year 1931. It is found in Erich Kästner's
children’s book The 35th of May, or Conrad’s Ride to the
South Seas:
The Second World War made military use of radio tele-
phony links. Hand-held radio transceivers have been
available since the 1940s. Mobile telephones for automo-
biles became available from some telephone companies
in the 1940s. Early devices were bulky and consumed
high power and the network supported only a few simul-
taneous conversations. Modern cellular networks allow
automatic and pervasive use of mobile phones for voice
and data communications.
2 2 EARLY SERVICES
In the United States, engineers from Bell Labs began
work on a system to allow mobile users to place and re-
ceive telephone calls from automobiles, leading to the
inauguration of mobile service on 17 June 1946 in St.
Louis, Missouri. Shortly after, AT&T offered Mobile
Telephone Service. A wide range of mostly incompatible
mobile telephone services offered limited coverage area
and only a few available channels in urban areas. The in-
troduction of cellular technology, which allowed re-use of
frequencies many times in small adjacent areas covered
by relatively low powered transmitters, made widespread
adoption of mobile telephones economically feasible.
One of the earliest fictional descriptions of a mobile
phone can be found in the 1948 science fiction novel
Space Cadet by Robert Heinlein. The protagonist, who
has just traveled to Colorado from his home in Des
Moines, receives a call from his father on a pocket tele-
phone. Before going to space he decides to ship the tele-
phone home “since it was limited by its short range to the
neighborhood of an earth-side [i.e. terrestrial] relay of-
fice.” Ten years later, an essay by Arthur C. Clarke envi-
sioned a “personal transceiver, so small and compact that
every man carries one.” He wrote: “the time will come
when we will be able to call a person anywhere on Earth
merely by dialing a number.” Such a device would also,
in Clarke’s vision, include means for global positioning so
that “no one need ever again be lost.” Later, in Profiles of
the Future, he predicted the advent of such a device tak-
ing place in the mid-1980s.[6] US TV series Get Smart
(1965-1970) depicted spy gadgets with mobile telephones
concealed in random objects, including shoes.
In the USSR, Leonid Kupriyanovich, an engineer from
Moscow, in 1957-1961 developed and presented a num-
ber of experimental models of handheld mobile phones.
The weight of one model, presented in 1961, was only 70
g and could fit on a palm.[7][8] However, in the USSR the
decision at first to develop the system of the automobile
“Altai” phone was made. [9]
In 1965, Bulgarian company “Radioelektronika” pre-
sented on the Inforga-65 international exhibition in
Moscow the mobile automatic phone combined with a
base station. Solutions of this phone were based on a
system developed by Leonid Kupriyanovich. One base
station, connected to one telephone wire line, could serve
up to 15 customers. [10]
The advances in mobile telephony can be traced in suc-
cessive generations from the early “0G” services like MTS
and its successor Improved Mobile Telephone Service,
to first generation (1G) analog cellular network, second
generation (2G) digital cellular networks, third genera-
tion (3G) broadband data services to the current state of
the art, fourth generation (4G) native-IP networks.
2 Early services
2.1 MTS
In 1949 AT&T commercialized Mobile Telephone Ser-
vice. From its start in St. Louis in 1946, AT&T then in-
troduced Mobile Telephone Service to one hundred towns
and highway corridors by 1948. Mobile Telephone Ser-
vice was a rarity with only 5,000 customers placing about
30 000 calls each week. Calls were set up manually by
an operator and the user had to depress a button on the
handset to talk and release the button to listen. The call
subscriber equipment weighed about 36 kg.[11]
Subscriber growth and revenue generation were ham-
pered by the constraints of the technology. Because only
three radio channels were available, only three customers
in any given city could make mobile telephone calls at one
time.[12] Mobile Telephone Service was expensive, cost-
ing 15 USD per month, plus 0.30 to 0.40 USD per local
call, equivalent to about 176 USD per month and 3.50 to
4.75 per call in 2012 USD.[11]
In the UK there was also a vehicle based system called
“Post Office Radiophone Service”[13] it was launched
around the city of Manchester in 1959, and although it
required callers to speak to an operator, it was possible
to be put through to any subscriber in Great Britain. The
service was extended to London in 1965 and other major
cities in 1972.
2.2 IMTS
AT&T introduced the first major improvement to mo-
bile telephony in 1965, giving the improved service the
obvious name of Improved Mobile Telephone Service.
IMTS used additional radio channels, allowing more si-
multaneous calls in a given geographic area, introduced
customer dialing, eliminating manual call setup by an op-
erator, and reduced the size and weight of the subscriber
equipment.[11]
Despite the capacity improvement offered by IMTS, de-
mand outstripped capacity. In agreement with state regu-
latory agencies, AT&T limited the service to just 40,000
customers system wide. In New York City, for example,
2,000 customers shared just 12 radio channels and typi-
cally had to wait 30 minutes to place a call.[11]
2.3 Radio Common Carrier
Radio Common Carrier [14] or RCC was a service in-
troduced in the 1960s by independent telephone com-
panies to compete against AT&T’s IMTS. RCC systems
used paired UHF 454/459 MHz and VHF 152/158 MHz
frequencies near those used by IMTS. RCC based ser-
vices were provided until the 1980s when cellular AMPS
systems made RCC equipment obsolete.
Some RCC systems were designed to allow customers
of adjacent carriers to use their facilities, but equipment
2.5 European mobile radio networks
A mobile radio telephone
used by RCCs did not allow the equivalent of modern
“roaming” because technical standards were not uniform.
For example, the phone of an Omaha, Nebraska–based
RCC service would not be likely to work in Phoenix,
Arizona. Roaming was not encouraged, in part, be-
cause there was no centralized industry billing database
for RCCs. Signaling formats were not standardized. For
example, some systems used two-tone sequential paging
to alert a mobile of an incoming call. Other systems used
DTMF. Some used Secode 2805, which transmitted an
interrupted 2805 Hz tone (similar to IMTS signaling) to
alert mobiles of an offered call. Some radio equipment
used with RCC systems was half-duplex, push-to-talk
LOMO equipment such as Motorola hand-helds or RCA
700-series conventional two-way radios. Other vehicu-
lar equipment had telephone handsets and rotary dials or
pushbutton pads, and operated full duplex like a conven-
tional wired telephone. A few users had full-duplex brief-
case telephones (radically advanced for their day)
At the end of RCC’s existence, industry associations were
working on a technical standard that would have allowed
roaming, and some mobile users had multiple decoders
to enable operation with more than one of the common
signaling formats (600/1500, 2805, and Reach). Manual
operation was often a fallback for RCC roamers.
2.4 Other services
In 1969 Penn Central Railroad equipped commuter trains
along the 360 km New York-Washington route with spe-
cial pay phones that allowed passengers to place telephone
calls while the train was moving. The system re-used six
frequencies in the 450 MHz band in nine sites.[12]
3
2.5 European mobile radio networks
In Europe, several mutually incompatible mobile radio
services were developed. West Germany had a network
called A-Netz launched in 1952 as the country’s first pub-
lic commercial mobile phone network. In 1972 this was
displaced by B-Netz which connected calls automatically.
In 1966 Norway had a system called OLT which was
manually controlled.
2.6 Cellular concepts
See also: Cellular network
In December 1947, Douglas H. Ring and W. Rae Young,
A multi-directional, cellular network antenna array ("cell tower")
Bell Labs engineers, proposed hexagonal cells for mobile
phones in vehicles.[15] At this stage, the technology to im-
plement these ideas did not exist, nor had the frequencies
been allocated. Two decades would pass before Richard
H. Frenkiel, Joel S. Engel and Philip T. Porter of Bell
Labs expanded the early proposals into a much more de-
tailed system plan. It was Porter who first proposed that
the cell towers use the now-familiar directional antennas
to reduce interference and increase channel reuse (see
picture at right) [16] Porter also invented the dial-then-
send method used by all cell phones to reduce wasted
channel time.
In all these early examples, a mobile phone had to stay
within the coverage area serviced by one base station
throughout the phone call, i.e. there was no continuity
of service as the phones moved through several cell ar-
eas. The concepts of frequency reuse and handoff, as well
as a number of other concepts that formed the basis of
modern cell phone technology, were described in the late
1960s, in papers by Frenkiel and Porter. In 1970 Amos E.
Joel, Jr., a Bell Labs engineer,[17] invented a “three-sided
trunk circuit” to aid in the “call handoff" process from one
4 4 HANDHELD MOBILE PHONE

cell to another. His patent contained an early description

In 1966, Bulgaria presented the pocket mobile automatic
of the Bell Labs cellular concept, but as switching sys- phone RAT-0,5 combined with a base station RATZ-10
tems became faster, such a circuit became unnecessary (RATC-10) on Interorgtechnika-66 international exhibi-
and was never implemented in a system. tion. One base station, connected to one telephone wire
A cellular telephone switching plan was described by line, could serve up to six customers (“Radio” magazine,
Fluhr and Nussbaum in 1973,[18] and a cellular telephone 2, 1967; “Novosti dnya” newsreel, 37, 1966).
data signaling system was described in 1977 by Hachen- One of the first successful public commercial mo-
burg et al.[19] bile phone networks was the ARP network in Finland,
launched in 1971. Posthumously, ARP is sometimes
viewed as a zero generation (0G) cellular network, being
slightly above previous proprietary and limited coverage
3 Emergence of automated services networks.

The first fully automated mobile phone system for ve-

hicles was launched in Sweden in 1956. Named MTA 4 Handheld mobile phone
(Mobiltelefonisystem A), it allowed calls to be made and
received in the car using a rotary dial. The car phone
could also be paged. Calls from the car were direct dial,
whereas incoming calls required an operator to locate the
nearest base station to the car. It was developed by Sture
Laurén and other engineers at Televerket network op-
erator. Ericsson provided the switchboard while Sven-
ska Radioaktiebolaget (SRA) and Marconi provided the
telephones and base station equipment. MTA phones
consisted of vacuum tubes and relays, and weighed 40
kg. In 1962, an upgraded version called Mobile System
B (MTB) was introduced. This was a push-button tele-
phone, and used transistors and DTMF signaling to im-
prove its operational reliability. In 1971 the MTD ver-
sion was launched, opening for several different brands
of equipment and gaining commercial success.[20][21] The
network remained open until 1983 and still had 600 cus-
tomers when it closed.
In 1958 development began on a similar system for mo-
torists in the USSR.[22] The “Altay” national civil mo-
bile phone service was based on Soviet MRT-1327 stan-
dard. The main developers of the Altay system were
the Voronezh Science Research Institute of Communica-
tions (VNIIS) and the State Specialized Project Institute
(GSPI). In 1963 the service started in Moscow, and by
1970 was deployed in 30 cities across the USSR. Versions
of the Altay system are still in use today as a trunking sys- Martin Cooper photographed in 2007 with his 1973 handheld
tem in some parts of Russia. mobile phone prototype
In 1959 a private telephone company located in Brew-
ster, Kansas, USA, the S&T Telephone Company, (still Prior to 1973, mobile telephony was limited to phones
in business today) with the use of Motorola Radio Tele- installed in cars and other vehicles.[17] Motorola was the
phone equipment and a private tower facility, offered to first company to produce a handheld mobile phone. On 3
the public mobile telephone services in that local area of April 1973 when Martin Cooper, a Motorola researcher
NW Kansas. This system was a direct dial up service and executive, made the first mobile telephone call from
through their local switchboard, and was installed in many handheld subscriber equipment, placing a call to Dr. Joel
private vehicles including grain combines, trucks, and au- S. Engel of Bell Labs.[23][24] The prototype handheld
tomobiles. For some as yet unknown reason, the system, phone used by Dr. Cooper weighed 1.1 kg and measured
after being placed online and operated for a very brief 23 cm long, 13 cm deep and 4.45 cm wide. The proto-
time period, was shut down. The management of the type offered a talk time of just 30 minutes and took 10
company was immediately changed, and the fully oper- hours to re-charge.[25]
able system and related equipment was immediately dis- John F. Mitchell,[26][27][28] Motorola’s chief of portable
mantled in early 1960, not to be seen again. communication products and Cooper’s boss in 1973,
 5

played a key role in advancing the development of hand-

held mobile telephone equipment. Mitchell success-
fully pushed Motorola to develop wireless communica-
tion products that would be small enough to use anywhere
and participated in the design of the cellular phone.[29][30]

5 Analog cellular networks – 1G

Main article: 1G

First automatic analog cellular systems deployed were

NTT's system first used in Tokyo in 1979, later spreading
to the whole of Japan, and NMT in the Nordic countries
in 1981.
The first analog cellular system widely deployed in
North America was the Advanced Mobile Phone Sys-
tem (AMPS).[31] It was commercially introduced in the
Two 1991 GSM mobile phones with several AC adapters
Americas in October 13, 1983, Israel in 1986, and Aus-
tralia in 1987. AMPS was a pioneering technology
that helped drive mass market usage of cellular technol-
ogy, but it had several serious issues by modern stan- in Europe were higher than those in America, though
dards. It was unencrypted and easily vulnerable to eaves- with some overlap. For example, the 900 MHz frequency
dropping via a scanner; it was susceptible to cell phone range was used for both 1G and 2G systems in Europe, so
“cloning;" and it used a Frequency-division multiple ac- the 1G systems were rapidly closed down to make space
cess (FDMA) scheme and required significant amounts for the 2G systems. In America the IS-54 standard was
of wireless spectrum to support. deployed in the same band as AMPS and displaced some
On 6 March 1983, the DynaTAC mobile phone launched of the existing analog channels.
on the first US 1G network by Ameritech. It cost $100m In 1993, IBM Simon was introduced. This was possi-
to develop, and took over a decade to reach the market.[32] bly the world’s first smartphone. It was a mobile phone,
The phone had a talk time of just thirty-five minutes and pager, fax machine, and PDA all rolled into one. It
took ten hours to charge. Consumer demand was strong included a calendar, address book, clock, calculator,
despite the battery life, weight, and low talk time, and notepad, email, and a touchscreen with a QWERTY
waiting lists were in the thousands.[33][34] keyboard.[35] The IBM Simon had a stylus you used to
Many of the iconic early commercial cell phones such as tap the touch screen with. It featured predictive typing
the Motorola DynaTAC Analog AMPS were eventually that would guess the next characters as you tapped. It
superseded by Digital AMPS (D-AMPS) in 1990, and had applications, or at least a way to deliver more fea-
AMPS service was shut down by most North American tures by plugging a PCMCIA 1.8 MB memory card into
carriers by 2008. the phone.[36] Coinciding with the introduction of 2G sys-
tems was a trend away from the larger “brick” phones
toward tiny 100 – 200 gram hand-held devices. This
change was possible not only through technological im-
6 Digital cellular networks – 2G provements such as more advanced batteries and more
energy-efficient electronics, but also because of the higher
Main articles: 2G, 2.5G and 2.75G density of cell sites to accommodate increasing usage.
In the 1990s, the 'second generation' mobile phone sys- The latter meant that the average distance transmission
tems emerged. Two systems competed for supremacy in from phone to the base station shortened, leading to in-
the global market: the European developed GSM stan- creased battery life while on the move.
dard and the U.S. developed CDMA standard. These The second generation introduced a new variant of com-
differed from the previous generation by using digital in- munication called SMS or text messaging. It was initially
stead of analog transmission, and also fast out-of-band available only on GSM networks but spread eventually on
phone-to-network signaling. The rise in mobile phone us- all digital networks. The first machine-generated SMS
age as a result of 2G was explosive and this era also saw message was sent in the UK on 3 December 1992 fol-
the advent of prepaid mobile phones. lowed in 1993 by the first person-to-person SMS sent in
In 1991 the first GSM network (Radiolinja) launched in Finland. The advent of prepaid services in the late 1990s
Finland. In general the frequencies used by 2G systems soon made SMS the communication method of choice
6 7 MOBILE BROADBAND DATA - 3G

ferent contenders pushing their own technologies, and the

vision of a single unified worldwide standard looked far
from reality. The standard 2G CDMA networks became
3G compliant with the adoption of Revision A to EV-
DO, which made several additions to the protocol while
retaining backwards compatibility:

• Introduction of several new forward link data rates

that increase the maximum burst rate from 2.45
Mbit/s to 3.1 Mbit/s
• Protocols that would decrease connection establish-
ment time
Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems used in • Ability for more than one mobile to share the same
Japan around 1997–2003 time slot
• Introduction of QoS flags
among the young, a trend which spread across all ages.
2G also introduced the ability to access media content on All these were put in place to allow for low latency, low
mobile phones. In 1998 the first downloadable content bit rate communications such as VoIP.[38]
sold to mobile phones was the ring tone, launched by Fin- The first pre-commercial trial network with 3G was
land’s Radiolinja (now Elisa). Advertising on the mobile launched by NTT DoCoMo in Japan in the Tokyo re-
phone first appeared in Finland when a free daily SMS gion in May 2001. NTT DoCoMo launched the first
news headline service was launched in 2000, sponsored commercial 3G network on 1 October 2001, using the
by advertising. WCDMA technology. In 2002 the first 3G networks
Mobile payments were trialed in 1998 in Finland and on the rival CDMA2000 1xEV-DO technology were
Sweden where a mobile phone was used to pay for a launched by SK Telecom and KTF in South Korea, and
Coca Cola vending machine and car parking. Commer- Monet in the USA. Monet has since gone bankrupt. By
cial launches followed in 1999 in Norway. The first com- the end of 2002, the second WCDMA network was
mercial payment system to mimic banks and credit cards launched in Japan by Vodafone KK (now Softbank). Eu-
was launched in the Philippines in 1999 simultaneously ropean launches of 3G were in Italy and the UK by the
by mobile operators Globe and Smart. Three/Hutchison group, on WCDMA. 2003 saw a further
8 commercial launches of 3G, six more on WCDMA and
The first full internet service on mobile phones was intro- two more on the EV-DO standard.
duced by NTT DoCoMo in Japan in 1999.
During the development of 3G systems, 2.5G systems
such as CDMA2000 1x and GPRS were developed
as extensions to existing 2G networks. These pro-
7 Mobile broadband data - 3G vide some of the features of 3G without fulfilling the
promised high data rates or full range of multimedia ser-
Main article: 3G vices. CDMA2000-1X delivers theoretical maximum
data speeds of up to 307 kbit/s. Just beyond these is the
As the use of 2G phones became more widespread and EDGE system which in theory covers the requirements
for 3G system, but is so narrowly above these that any
people began to utilize mobile phones in their daily lives,
it became clear that demand for data (such as access to practical system would be sure to fall short.
browse the internet) was growing. Further, experience The high connection speeds of 3G technology enabled
from fixed broadband services showed there would also a transformation in the industry: for the first time, me-
be an ever increasing demand for greater data speeds. The dia streaming of radio (and even television) content to
2G technology was nowhere near up to the job, so the in- 3G handsets became possible,[39] with companies such
dustry began to work on the next generation of technology as RealNetworks[40] and Disney[41] among the early pi-
known as 3G. The main technological difference that dis- oneers in this type of offering.
tinguishes 3G technology from 2G technology is the use In the mid-2000s (decade), an evolution of 3G tech-
of packet switching rather than circuit switching for data nology began to be implemented, namely High-Speed
transmission.[37] In addition, the standardization process Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA). It is an enhanced 3G
focused on requirements more than technology (2 Mbit/s (third generation) mobile telephony communications pro-
maximum data rate indoors, 384 kbit/s outdoors, for ex- tocol in the High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) family,
ample). also coined 3.5G, 3G+ or turbo 3G, which allows net-
Inevitably this led to many competing standards with dif- works based on Universal Mobile Telecommunications
 7

System (UMTS) to have higher data transfer speeds and cally from 3G was in its elimination of circuit switching,
capacity. Current HSDPA deployments support down- instead employing an all-IP network. Thus, 4G ushered
link speeds of 1.8, 3.6, 7.2 and 14.0 Mbit/s. in a treatment of voice calls just like any other type of
By the end of 2007, there were 295 million subscribers streaming audio media, utilizing packet switching
[43]
over in-
on 3G networks worldwide, which reflected 9% of the to- ternet, LAN or WAN networks via VoIP.
tal worldwide subscriber base. About two thirds of these
were on the WCDMA standard and one third on the EV-
DO standard. The 3G telecoms services generated over 9 Thefts
120 Billion dollars of revenues during 2007 and at many
markets the majority of new phones activated were 3G
phones. In Japan and South Korea the market no longer According to the Federal Communications Commission,
supplies phones of the second generation. one out of three robberies involved the theft of a cel-
lular phone. Police data in San Francisco showed that
Although mobile phones had long had the ability to ac- one-half of all robberies in 2012 were thefts of cellular
cess data networks such as the Internet, it was not until the phones. An online petition on Change.org called Secure
widespread availability of good quality 3G coverage in the our Smartphones urged smartphone manuacturers to in-
mid-2000s (decade) that specialized devices appeared to stall kill switches in their devices to make them unusable
access the mobile internet. The first such devices, known in case of theft. The petition is part of a joint effort by
as "dongles", plugged directly into a computer through the New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and San
USB port. Another new class of device appeared subse- Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and was di-
quently, the so-called "compact wireless router" such as rected to the CEOs of the major smartphone manufactur-
the Novatel MiFi, which makes 3G internet connectiv- ers and telecommunication carriers. [45] On Monday, 10
ity available to multiple computers simultaneously over June 2013, Apple announced it would install a kill switch
Wi-Fi, rather than just to a single computer via a USB on its next iPhone operating system, due to debut in Oc-
plug-in. tober 2013.[46]
Such devices became especially popular for use with lap-
top computers due to the added portability they bestow.
Consequently, some computer manufacturers started to
embed the mobile data function directly into the laptop 10 Satellite mobile
so a dongle or MiFi wasn't needed. Instead, the SIM
card could be inserted directly into the device itself to Main article: Satellite phone
access the mobile data services. Such 3G-capable lap-
tops became commonly known as “netbooks”. Other Earth-orbiting satellites can cover remote areas out of
types of data-aware devices followed in the netbook’s reach of wired networks or where construction of a cel-
footsteps. By the beginning of 2010, E-readers, such as lular network is uneconomic. The Inmarsat satellite tele-
the Amazon Kindle and the Nook from Barnes & No- phone system, originally developed in 1979 for safety of
ble, had already become available with embedded wire- life at sea, is now also useful for areas out of reach of land-
less internet, and Apple Computer had announced plans line, conventional cellular, or marine VHF radio stations.
for embedded wireless internet on its iPad tablet devices In 1998 the Iridium satellite system was set up, and al-
beginning that Fall. though the initial operating company went bankrupt due
to high initial expenses, the service is available today.

8 Native IP networks – 4G
Main article: 4G 11 See also

By 2009, it had become clear that, at some point, • Autopatch

3G networks would be overwhelmed by the growth
of bandwidth-intensive applications like streaming • History of the prepaid mobile phone
media.[42] Consequently, the industry began looking
to data-optimized 4th-generation technologies, with • History of the telephone
the promise of speed improvements up to 10-fold over
existing 3G technologies. The first two commercially • List of best-selling mobile phones
available technologies billed as 4G were the WiMAX
standard (offered in the U.S. by Sprint) and the LTE • Personal Communications Service PCS
standard, first offered in Scandinavia by TeliaSonera.
One of the main ways in which 4G differed technologi- • Pager
8 12
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[13] http://www.btplc.com/today/art91356.html
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pg=PA94&dq=%22radio+common+carrier%22&hl=
en&sa=X&ei=caK2VL2xG5PVasaPgsgK&redir_esc=
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13 Further reading
• Agar, Jon (2004). Constant Touch: a Global History
of the Mobile Phone. Cambridge: Icon. ISBN 978-
1840465419.

• Farley, Tom (2007). “The Cell-Phone Revolution”.

American heritage of invention & technology (New
York: American Heritage) 22 (3): 8–19. ISSN
8756-7296. OCLC 108126426. BL Shelfmark
0817.734000.

14 External links
• Cell Phone Basics

• Mobile Phone Museum from Europe

• Mobile Phone Technology Old Patents

• Mobile Phone Museum from Ireland

• A history of mobile phone design

10 15 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

15 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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• History of mobile phones Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mobile_phones?oldid=699008402 Contributors: William
Avery, Infrogmation, Ixfd64, Ahoerstemeier, Darkwind, Saint-Paddy, Andrewman327, Haukurth, Furrykef, Chuunen Baka, Ke4roh, Au-
ric, Hadal, Patcat88, Netjeff, GreatWhiteNortherner, Alan Liefting, DocWatson42, Seabhcan, Alison, Danio, Jackol, Bobblewik, Beland,
Jossi, DragonflySixtyseven, LHOON, Qui1che, Mike Rosoft, Freakofnurture, Cruvers, Discospinster, Vsmith, Xezbeth, MyNameIsNot-
Bob, Professorbiscuit, El C, Lankiveil, RoyBoy, Cacophony, Jpgordon, Bobo192, Mikemellor, A1kmm, (aeropagitica), Polylerus, Nsaa,
Alansohn, Gary, ChrisUK, Schnell, Guy Harris, Fadookie, Verdlanco, Andrew Gray, Lightdarkness, Mysdaao, Hu, ProhibitOnions, Wt-
shymanski, Knowledge Seeker, Amorymeltzer, RainbowOfLight, Versageek, Gene Nygaard, Bookandcoffee, Demiurg, Angr, Kelly Mar-
tin, Woohookitty, Beej, Wikiklrsc, Mandarax, Graham87, BD2412, Qwertyus, Dwarf Kirlston, Edison, Canderson7, Sjö, Rjwilmsi, The
wub, Keimzelle, Msittig, RainR, Musical Linguist, Fragglet, RobyWayne, Arctic.gnome, Penguin, Hatch68, DVdm, Bgwhite, Gwer-
nol, Sceptre, Kencaesi, Phantomsteve, Freiberg, Hydrargyrum, Rsrikanth05, Cpuwhiz11, Tungsten, Wimt, NawlinWiki, Grafen, Bran-
don, Moe Epsilon, Nick C, Tony1, Syrthiss, Syed, Kawika, Deville, 2over0, Zzuuzz, Theda, Closedmouth, Pb30, GraemeL, CWenger,
Ketil3, Allens, Katieh5584, Cotoco, Jaycarlson, Kf4bdy, Palapa, SmackBot, Looper5920, Sea diver, Verne Equinox, Delldot, Yam-
aguchi , Gilliam, Hmains, Skizzik, Kurykh, Kharker, Keegan, Jprg1966, Raymond arritt, Miquonranger03, Deli nk, Neo-Jay, TheFeds,
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cat, Dl2000, Iridescent, Ft93110, Joseph Solis in Australia, 10014derek, UncleDouggie, CapitalR, Thesnabber, Courcelles, Tawkerbot2,
Dlohcierekim, Filelakeshoe, Inkybutton, JForget, Rnickel, Dycedarg, KyraVixen, JohnCD, Nunquam Dormio, Misteraznkid, SEJohnston,
Requestion, Lazulilasher, Zinjixmaggir, Fordmadoxfraud, Yaris678, Cydebot, Besieged, CovenantD, Nick Wilson, Gogo Dodo, Tick-
etMan, Bazzargh, Damifb, Comwizz2, Murileemartin, Dancter, Hydro the Water Wizard, Kozuch, ErrantX, Omicronpersei8, JodyB,
Satori Son, Epbr123, Andy Eng, Kubanczyk, Qwyrxian, Josephbrophy, Marek69, Electron9, Z10x, LG4761, Nick Number, Natalie Erin,
Screen42, Mentifisto, Saimhe, Obiwankenobi, Seaphoto, Prolog, Gh5046, Harryzilber, MER-C, Fetchcomms, Tigernike1, Greensburger,
Frankie816, PhilKnight, Bongwarrior, VoABot II, AuburnPilot, Jim Douglas, WODUP, Schily, 28421u2232nfenfcenc, BilCat, Hbent,
MartinBot, PaulLev, NAHID, APT, Jim.henderson, Anaxial, Seanscian, HarZim, Paranomia, J.delanoy, Mange01, Mojodaddy, Trusilver,
Anas Salloum, Midgey34, Katalaveno, Slithymatt, Clerks, Ignatzmice, IngSoc BigBrother, AntiSpamBot, RenniePet, 2help, Jc4p, Natl1,
Markodeano, Bonadea, CrazyRob926, Specter01010, CardinalDan, RJASE1, Deor, Jeff G., Lear’s Fool, Philip Trueman, Oshwah, Moog-
wrench, GDonato, Sean D Martin, Charlesdrakew, Lradrama, LeaveSleaves, Ilyushka88, Madhero88, Billinghurst, Billgordon1099, Andy
Dingley, Adam.J.W.C., Falcon8765, Logan, Cvf-ps, NHRHS2010, Regregex, Jamessungjin.kim, Midgetman525, Tiddly Tom, Jauerback,
S4life1001, Dawn Bard, RJaguar3, Yintan, Calabraxthis, Jbwilson333, Rwwolfe, Jp314159, Keilana, Flyer22 Reborn, Techbiz, Yone
Fernandes, Bionicseraph, Izmerov, Tomi T Ahonen, Capitalismojo, Escape Orbit, Loren.wilton, Martarius, Elassint, ClueBot, The Thing
That Should Not Be, Rodhullandemu, Ndenison, Arakunem, Drmies, Showtime2009, Yoshi Canopus, Boing! said Zebedee, CounterVan-
dalismBot, Elm23, Blanchardb, LizardJr8, Auntof6, Manishearth, Sparks Ignite, Excirial, Jusdafax, Abrech, Muhandes, Vivio Testarossa,
Rhododendrites, NuclearWarfare, Iohannes Animosus, Compustudente, Razorflame, Calor, Thingg, Subash.chandran007, Versus22, Myth-
don, SoxBot III, InternetMeme, XLinkBot, Fastily, Avoided, WikHead, NellieBly, Spartan1156, Sweetpoet, Lovekeeon, Gggh, Osarius,
Addbot, Speer320, Cell66, DOI bot, Jojhutton, Captain-tucker, Usermtt6928, Zellfaze, Blethering Scot, Ronhjones, Jncraton, Fieldday-
sunday, Awisepilot, Fluffernutter, Cst17, Glane23, Favonian, 5 albert square, Fireaxe888, Tide rolls, Luckas Blade, Quantumobserver,
Rrmsjp, Alfie66, Yobot, 2D, Fraggle81, Amirobot, Webmgr, Bbb23, Juliancolton Alternative, AnomieBOT, DemocraticLuntz, Coop-
kev2, BlazerKnight, Piano non troppo, AdjustShift, Solidsandie, Kingpin13, Ulric1313, Materialscientist, Dino alx, Aff123a, Citation bot,
Elm-39, Gsmgm, Sketchmoose, An805Guy, Addihockey10, JimVC3, Capricorn42, Drilnoth, TracyMcClark, Schlockstar, Nasnema, Ace-
bulf, Loulalicious, Shirik, Doulos Christos, LyleHoward, SD5, A.amitkumar, Dougofborg, Griffinofwales, Nenya17, George2001hi, Tan-
gent747, Tatimmins, Recognizance, Varundbest10, D'ohBot, VI, Rkr1991, CellMonkey, 963852741X, Pinethicket, I dream of horses, Pink
Bull, A412, Jschnur, Serols, December21st2012Freak, Averykhoo, Kupecap, Vrenator, Diannaa, Bobby2020, Suffusion of Yellow, Reach
Out to the Truth, Minimac, DARTH SIDIOUS 2, Onel5969, RjwilmsiBot, Regancy42, 450SL, Steve03Mills, J36miles, John of Reading,
Domesticenginerd, Tuankiet65, Dewritech, Tommy2010, Wikipelli, K6ka, AsceticRose, Byee.polar, Anirudh Emani, Xkizer, PS., John
Cline, Fæ, Wackywace, Alpha Quadrant, Do not share drinks, Alpha Quadrant (alt), H3llBot, Amanisdude, Ocaasi, Tolly4bolly, Alex
Neman, Jp98745615555478, L Kensington, Morgankevinj, Senjuto, Povllund, Dmag31, Cherry369, DASHBotAV, 28bot, Petrb, ClueBot
NG, Iiii I I I, This lousy T-shirt, Satellizer, Vacation9, ScottSteiner, Marechal Ney, Widr, Kids1234, Joel.nissanka2, Vibhijain, Oddbodz,
Helpful Pixie Bot, Deltaray3, LiLKingDog, BG19bot, Garec111, Cyberpower678, MusikAnimal, Rm1271, Camstedam, Gwickwire, Cen-
soredBiscuit, RscprinterBot, Aisteco, Otryan, Utrippinbro, Struwwelpeter, Vanished user lt94ma34le12, Mdann52, Cyberbot II, The Il-
lusive Man, ChrisGualtieri, Brimur05, Khazar2, Ducknish, Tcomotcom, Webclient101, Joeysnake13, Mogism, Lugia2453, Blackredstart,
King jakob c, Sriharsh1234, Kirk.barclay, Pepemako, Gargar013, Jmg56558, Almantas Steckevičius, Nicolibellamont, I am One of Many,
Wikidamo, Eyesnore, Harlem Baker Hughes, Radar12345, Grndvl1, Hardcoreromancatholic, DavidLeighEllis, Wamiq, Preetsaini1606,
Weniki13, Melody Lavender, Ginsuloft, Jackmcbarn, Snosno0111, Jsandstedt, Bmoretta, Naditha basnayake, Ferted, 115ash, Tranquil-
Hope, SA 13 Bro, GeorginaMat, Kaufmanitay, Morcohen2, Morlvi, Jolly111, Ada;lsdkfjminedit, Amazingness555, Bri2004, Itay890,
Dbdbbdq, Leungua and Anonymous: 1140

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• File:2007Computex_e21-MartinCooper.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/2007Computex_
e21-MartinCooper.jpg License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors:
• 2007Computex_e21Forum-MartinCooper.jpg Original artist: 2007Computex_e21Forum-MartinCooper.jpg: Rico Shen
• File:Folder_Hexagonal_Icon.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/48/Folder_Hexagonal_Icon.svg License: Cc-by-
sa-3.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
• File:GSM-Telefone-1991.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/GSM-Telefone-1991.jpg License: CC
BY 2.5 Contributors: CANON PowerShot G7 Original artist: Clemens PFEIFFER
• File:Mobile_phone_PHS_Japan_1997-2003.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Mobile_phone_
PHS_Japan_1997-2003.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Marus Original artist: Marus
15.3 Content license 11

• File:Mobile_radio_telephone.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Mobile_radio_telephone.jpg License:

Public domain Contributors: Transferred from en.wikipedia; transferred to Commons by User:Liftarn using CommonsHelper. Original
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• File:Simplicissimus_Karl_Arnold_Mobile_Telephony.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e0/Simplicissimus_
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