MOBILE PHONE TECHNOLOGY TURNS 20

[Anonymous]

Mobile phone technology turns 20
The technology behind the mobile phone is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
On
7 September 1987, 15 phone firms signed an agreement to build mobile
networks based on the Global System for Mobile (GSM)
CommunicationsAccording to the GSM Association there are more than 2.5
billion accounts that use this mobile phone technology.Adoption of the
technology shows no signs of slowing down with many developing nations
becoming keen users of mobile handsets.

Future phones
Robert
Conway, head of the GSM Association, said the memorandum of
understanding signed in 1987 is widely seen as the moment when the
global mobile industry got under way.Although work on the GSM technical
specifications began earlier, the agreement signed in 1987 committed
those operators to building networks based upon it.   

GSM FACTS
China has 445 million GSM customers
There are 2.5 billion GSM connections worldwide
64% of mobile users are in emerging markets
About seven billion text messages are sent every day
Source: GSM Association

“There’s
no doubt that at the time of the agreement in 1987 no one had an idea
of the explosive capabilities in terms of growth that would happen
after the GSM standard was agreed,” he said.Since then, he said, the
numbers of people using GSM mobiles has always outstripped the
predictions.Once the preserve of the well off, mobiles were now “the
everyday gadget that’s essential to people’s lives,” he said.In the UK
there are now more mobiles than people according to Ofcom statistics
which reveal that, at the end of 2006, for every 100 Britons there are
116.6 mobile connections.Figures from the GSM Association show it took
12 years for the first billion mobile connections to be made but only
30 months for the figure to reach two billion.”In the developing world
they are becoming absolutely indispensable,” said Mr Conway.This was
because handsets were now cheap and mobile networks much less expensive
to set up than the fixed alternatives.

Discarded mobiles, PA
There
are so many phones that recycling them is a problemBut getting mobiles
in to the hands of billions of people was just the start, said Mr
Conway.”The technology is a gravitational force that brings in to its
orbit a huge amount of innovators,” he said.In the future, he
suggested, high-speed networks would be ubiquitous adding the
intelligence of mobiles to anything and everything.”The technology will
be in the fabric of your clothing, your shoes, in appliances, in your
car,” he said.For instance, he said, the ubiquity of mobile technology
could revolutionise healthcare and see people wearing monitors that
gather and transmit information about vital signs.

Phones too could change radically in the future.
“You’ll
pull them out of your pocket and they’ll look like a map but unfold
like a screen,” said Mr Conway. “We’re now on the verge of another wave
and that’s going to be stimulated by mobile broadband.” 

[Author]

September 14, 2007 at 10:56 AM