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Mobile Phone
A mobile phone (also known as a wireless phone, cell phone, or cellular
telephone) is a short-range, electronic device used for mobile voice or
data communication over a network of specialised base stations known as
cell sites. In addition to the standard voice function of a mobile
phone, telephone, current mobile phones may support many additional
services, and accessories, such as SMS for text messaging, email, packet
switching for access to the Internet, gaming, Bluetooth, infrared,
camera with video recorder and MMS for sending and receiving photos and
video. Most current mobile phones connect to a cellular network of base
stations (cell sites), which is in turn interconnected to the public
switched telephone network (PSTN) (the exception is satellite phones).
History
In 1908, U.S. Patent 887,357 for a wireless telephone was issued in to
Nathan B. Stubblefield of Murray, Kentucky. He applied this patent to
"cave radio" telephones and not directly to cellular telephony as the
term is currently understood.Cells for mobile phone base stations were
invented in 1947 by Bell Labs engineers at AT&T and further developed by
Bell Labs during the 1960s. Radiophones have a long and varied history
going back to Reginald Fessenden's invention and shore-to-ship
demonstration of radio telephony, through the Second World War with
military use of radio telephony links and civil services in the 1950s,
while hand-held cellular radio devices have been available since 1973. A
patent for the first wireless phone as we know today was issued in US
Patent Number 3,449,750 to George Sweigert of Euclid, Ohio on June 10th,
1969.
In 1945, the zero generation (0G) of mobile telephones was introduced.
0G mobile phones, such as Mobile Telephone Service, were not cellular,
and so did not feature "handover" from one base station to the next and
reuse of radio frequency channels.[citation needed] Like other
technologies of the time, it involved a single, powerful base station
covering a wide area, and each telephone would effectively monopolize a
channel over that whole area while in use. The concepts of frequency
reuse and handoff as well as a number of other concepts that formed the
basis of modern cell phone technology are first described in U.S. Patent
4,152,647 , issued May 1, 1979 to Charles A. Gladden and Martin H.
Parelman, both of Las Vegas, Nevada and assigned by them to the United
States Government.
This is the first embodiment of all the concepts that formed the basis
of the next major step in mobile telephony, the Analog cellular
telephone. Concepts covered in this patent (cited in at least 34 other
patents) also were later extended to several satellite communication
systems. Later updating of the cellular system to a digital system
credits this patent.
Martin Cooper, a Motorola researcher and executive is widely considered
to be the inventor of the first practical mobile phone for handheld use
in a non-vehicle setting. Using a modern, if somewhat heavy portable
handset, Cooper made the first call on a handheld mobile phone on April
3, 1973.
The first commercial citywide cellular network was launched in Japan by
NTT in 1979. Fully automatic cellular networks were first introduced in
the early to mid 1980s (the 1G generation). The Nordic Mobile Telephone
(NMT) system went online in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden in 1981.
In 1983, Motorola DynaTAC was the first approved mobile phone by FCC in
the United States. In 1984, Bell Labs developed modern commercial
cellular technology (based, to a large extent, on the Gladden, Parelman
Patent), which employed multiple, centrally controlled base stations
(cell sites), each providing service to a small area (a cell). The cell
sites would be set up such that cells partially overlapped. In a
cellular system, a signal between a base station (cell site) and a
terminal (phone) only need be strong enough to reach between the two, so
the same channel can be used simultaneously for separate conversations
in different cells.
Cellular systems required several leaps of technology, including
handover, which allowed a conversation to continue as a mobile phone
traveled from cell to cell. This system included variable transmission
power in both the base stations and the telephones (controlled by the
base stations), which allowed range and cell size to vary. As the system
expanded and neared capacity, the ability to reduce transmission power
allowed new cells to be added, resulting in more, smaller cells and thus
more capacity. The evidence of this growth can still be seen in the many
older, tall cell site towers with no antennae on the upper parts of
their towers. These sites originally created large cells, and so had
their antennae mounted atop high towers; the towers were designed so
that as the system expanded—and cell sizes shrank—the antennae could be
lowered on their original masts to reduce range.
The
first "modern" network technology on digital 2G (second generation)
cellular technology was launched by Radiolinja (now part of Elisa Group)
in 1991 in Finland on the GSM standard which also marked the
introduction of competition in mobile telecoms when Radiolinja
challenged incumbent Telecom Finland (now part of TeliaSonera) who ran a
1G NMT network.
The first
data services appeared on mobile phones starting with person-to-person
SMS text messaging in Finland in 1993. First trial payments using a
mobile phone to pay for a Coca Cola vending machine were set in Finland
in 1998. The first commercial payments were mobile parking trialled in
Sweden but first commercially launched in Norway in 1999. The first
commercial payment system to mimick banks and credit cards was launched
in the Philippines in 1999 simultaneously by mobile operators Globe and
Smart. The first content sold to mobile phones was the ringing tone,
first launched in 1998 in Finland. The first full internet service on
mobile phones was i-Mode introduced by NTT DoCoMo in Japan in 1999.
In 2001 the first commercial launch of 3G (Third Generation) was again
in Japan by NTT DoCoMo on the WCDMA standard.
Until the
early 1990s, most mobile phones were too large to be carried in a jacket
pocket, so they were typically installed in vehicles as car phones. With
the miniaturization of digital components and the development of more
sophisticated batteries, mobile phones have become smaller and lighter.
With its use by Nokia as the default ringtone, The Gran Vals by
Francisco Tarrega has become arguably the most recognised tune in the
world.
Http://www.mobilephone.xm.com
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