Text 2. The History of the Mobile Phone

A mobile phone (also known as a cell phone or cellular phone) is a portable electronic device used for mobile communication. In addition to the standard voice function of a telephone, current mobile phones can support many additional services such as SMS for text messaging, email, Internet browsing, MMS for sending and receiving photos and video, video calling and serving as a wireless modem for a PC, personal organizer functions, ringtones, call registers, Bluetooth connectivity, built-in camera and camcorder, games, MP3 player, radio and GPS.

The mobile phone has become one of the most successful inventions in the 20th century. In about 20 years’ time, this technology conquered the globe and became a demand for the majority of people in the world. It provides communication for people no matter anywhere and anytime.

This history of mobile phones chronicles the development of handheld radio telephone technology from two-way radios in vehicles to handheld cellular phones.

In the beginning, two-way radios (known as mobile rigs) were used in vehicles such as taxicabs, police cruisers, ambulances, and the like, but were not mobile phones because they were not normally connected to the telephone network. Users could not dial phone numbers from their mobile radios in their vehicles. A large community of mobile radio users, known as the mobileers, popularized the technology that would eventually give way to the mobile phone. Originally, mobile phones were permanently installed in vehicles, but later versions such as the so-called transportables or "bag phones" were equipped with a cigarette lighter plug so that they could also be carried, and thus could be used as either mobile or as portable two-way radios. During the early 1940s, Motorola developed a backpacked two-way radio, the Walkie-Talkie and later developed a large hand-held two-way radio for the US military. This battery powered "Handie-Talkie" (HT) was about the size of a man’s forearm.

The first fully automatic mobile phone system, called MTA (Mobile Telephone system A), was developed by Ericsson and commercially released in Sweden in 1956. This was the first system that didn’t require any kind of manual control, but had the disadvantage of a phone weight of 40 kg.

In Europe, radio telephony was first used on the first-class passenger trains between Berlin and Hamburg in 1926. At the same time, radio telephony was introduced on passenger airplanes for air traffic security. Later radio telephony was introduced on a large scale in German tanks during the Second World War. After the war German police in the British zone of occupation first used disused tank telephony equipment to run the first radio patrol cars. In all of these cases the service was confined to specialists that were trained to use the equipment. In the early 1950s ships on the Rhine were among the first to use radio telephony with an untrained end customer as a user.

The first commercial launch of cellular telecoms was launched by NET in Tokyo Japan in 1979. In 1981 the NMT system was launched in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The first handheld mobile phone in the US market was Motorola, which received approval in 1983. Mobile phones began to proliferate through the 1980s with the introduction of "cellular" phones based on cellular networks. Mobile phones were somewhat larger than current ones, and at first, all were designed for permanent installation in vehicles (hence the term car phone). Soon, some of these bulky units were converted for use as "transportable" phones the size of a briefcase. Motorola introduced the first truly portable, hand held phone. These systems later became known as first generation (1G) mobile phones.

In the 1990s, ‘second generation’ (2G) mobile phone systems began to be introduced. In 1991 the first GSM network (Radiolinja) opened in Finland. 2G phone systems were characterized by digital circuit switched transmission and the introduction of advanced and fast phone to network signaling.

The second generation introduced a new variant to communication, as SMS text messaging became possible, initially on GSM networks and eventually on all digital networks. The first machine-generated SMS message was sent in the UK in 1991. The first person-to-person SMS text message was sent in Finland in 1993. Soon SMS became the communication method of preference for the youth. Today in many advanced markets the general public prefers sending text messages to placing voice calls.

Not long after the introduction of 2G networks, projects began to develop third generation (3G) systems.

From the early stages of analog cellular to now the latest 3G mobile phone system, the mobile phone developed rapidly in the past 20 years. Each stage of development provided a big improve to the industries. From early stages of voice to voice simple communication, to the WAP and GPRS internet connection and now the high speed internet connection through the internet, it showed that mobile phones is one of the leading technology in the high technology industry. The convenience brought by this technology indeed changed the life of many people and society. Many things such as banking, gathering information such as reports or latest news, control the share market via GPRS etc are what the technology helped to improve and ease the life of people. Japan is the country which the mobile phone technology develops the fastest in the world. Before the 3G technology was launched in other countries, the Japanese had already mastered the technology. Studies believed that a new mobile phone network system, 4G will be in the market in the nearby future. 4G, or known as the fourth generation mobile is a whole new radio access network. Stronger and clearer signals and higher speed (broadband speed, 100 times faster than the 3G connection) connection through the internet are the highlights of the 4G technology. Although the 3G technology had only been promoted no long ago, this new technology is now under development stage. It is believed that the 4G will be a big leap and a whole new revolution for the mobile phone industry and the users.

Since mobile phone was developed and used by a large population of people, it changed the lifestyle of many people. On positive views, mobile phone provided a fast and immediate communication for people, which built up a much closer relationship within each another. Though, the negative views of mobile phone became a popular discussion now. Symptoms such as radiation which causes cancer from the mobile phones and mobile phone addiction are now argued to be the disadvantages of the technology. The danger brought by using mobile phones such as the unsafe of using mobile phone during driving or radiation of mobile phone causing danger to certain places such as the gas station are also problems for mobile phone users.

Unit 8. BUSINESS TRAVEL