Editing Mobile telephony (section)

== History ==
{{main|History of mobile phones|History of the prepaid mobile phone}}

According to internal memos, [[American Telephone & Telegraph]] discussed developing a wireless phone in 1915, but were afraid that deployment of the technology could undermine its monopoly on wired service in the U.S.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.slate.com/id/2193293/ |title=iSurrender: Apple's new iPhone augurs the inevitable return of the Bell telephone monopoly. |first=Tim |last=Wu |magazine=Slate |date=2008-06-10}}</ref>

[[File:Autotentoonstelling_RAI,_Bestanddeelnr_902-7202.jpg|thumb|Booth presenting the first Dutch vehicle or watercraft telephone ("Mobilofoon"), a collaboration of the [[Royal Dutch Automobile Club]] (KNAC), and the [[Netherlands Postal, Telegraph and Telephone]] (PTT) at the 1948 [[Amsterdam International Motor Show]] (AutoRAI).]]
Public mobile phone systems were first introduced in the years after the Second World War and made use of technology developed before and during the conflict. The first system opened in [[St. Louis, Missouri]], United States in 1946 whilst other countries followed in the succeeding decades. The UK introduced its 'System 1' manual radiotelephone service as the South Lancashire Radiophone Service in 1958.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://imagelibrary.btplc.com/assetbank-btplc/action/viewAsset?id=1895&index=0&total=21&categoryId=215&categoryTypeId=1&collection=Mobile%20communications&sortAttributeId=0&sortDescending=false |title=Asset Bank &#124; Image Details |publisher=Imagelibrary.btplc.com |access-date=2011-07-11 |archive-date=May 6, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160506075820/http://imagelibrary.btplc.com/assetbank-btplc/action/viewAsset?id=1895&index=0&total=21&categoryId=215&categoryTypeId=1&collection=Mobile |url-status=dead }}</ref>  Calls were made via an operator using handsets identical to ordinary phone handsets.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://imagelibrary.btplc.com/assetbank-btplc/action/viewAsset?id=1857&index=15&total=21&collection=Mobile%20communications&categoryId=215&categoryTypeId=1&filterId=0&sortAttributeId=0&sortDescending=false |title=Asset Bank &#124; Image Details |publisher=Imagelibrary.btplc.com |access-date=2011-07-11 |archive-date=May 6, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160506132434/http://imagelibrary.btplc.com/assetbank-btplc/action/viewAsset?id=1857&index=15&total=21&collection=Mobile |url-status=dead }}</ref> The phone itself was a large box located in the boot (trunk) of the vehicle containing valves and other early electronic components. Although an uprated manual service ('System 3') was extended to cover most of the UK, automation did not arrive until 1981 with 'System 4'.  Although this non-cellular service, based on German [[B-Netz]] technology, was expanded rapidly throughout the UK between 1982 and 1985 and continued in operation for several years before finally closing in Scotland, it was overtaken by the introduction in January 1985 of two cellular systems - the [[BT Group|British Telecom]]/[[Securicor]] '[[O2 (UK)|Cellnet]]' service and the Racal/[[Millicom]]/[[Barclays]] '[[Vodafone UK|Vodafone]]' (from voice + data + phone) service. These cellular systems were based on US [[Advanced Mobile Phone Service]] (AMPS) technology, the modified technology being named [[Total Access Communication System]] (TACS).
[[File:Kapper per mobilofoon in Wenen, de kapster in actie, Bestanddeelnr 917-1975 (cropped).jpg|thumb|Use of an early mobile phone in Austria, 1964]]
In 1947, [[Bell Labs]] was the first to propose a cellular radio telephone network. The primary innovation was the development of a network of small overlapping cell sites supported by a call switching infrastructure that tracks users as they move through a network and passes their calls from one site to another without dropping the connection. In 1956, the [[MTD (mobile network)|MTA]] system was launched in Sweden. The early efforts to develop mobile telephony faced two significant challenges: allowing a great number of callers to use the comparatively few available frequencies simultaneously and allowing users to seamlessly move from one area to another without having their calls dropped.  Both problems were solved by Bell Labs employee Amos Joel who, in 1970 applied for a patent for a mobile communications system.<ref>Patent No. 3,663,762, issued May 16, 1972.</ref>  However, a business consulting firm calculated the entire U.S. market for mobile telephones at 100,000 units and the entire worldwide market at no more than 200,000 units based on the ready availability of pay telephones and the high cost of constructing cell towers.  As a consequence, Bell Labs concluded that the invention was "of little or no consequence," leading it not to attempt to commercialize the invention.  The invention earned Joel induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2008.<ref>[[List of National Inventors Hall of Fame inductees]]</ref>

The development of [[metal–oxide–semiconductor]] (MOS) [[large-scale integration]] (LSI) technology, [[information theory]] and [[cellular network]]ing led to the development of affordable [[mobile communications]].<ref name="Srivastava">{{cite book |last1=Srivastava |first1=Viranjay M. |last2=Singh |first2=Ghanshyam |title=MOSFET Technologies for Double-Pole Four-Throw Radio-Frequency Switch |date=2013 |publisher=[[Springer Science & Business Media]] |isbn=9783319011653 |page=1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fkO9BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1}}</ref> The first call on a handheld mobile phone was made on April 3, 1973, by Martin Cooper, then of Motorola<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/April2003/5173.htm |title=30th Anniversary of First Wireless Cell Phone Call |publisher=3g.co.uk |access-date=2011-07-11}}</ref> to his opposite number in Bell Labs who were also racing to be first.  Bell Labs went on to install the first trial cellular network in Chicago in 1978. This trial system was licensed by the FCC to ATT for commercial use in 1982 and, as part of the divestiture arrangements for the breakup of ATT, the AMPS technology was distributed to local telcos.  The first commercial system opened in Chicago in October 1983.<ref>Article by Larry Kahaner and Alan Green in the Chicago Tribune of December 22, 1983 [https://archive.today/20140226220442/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/access/629023862.html Reach out and touch someone--by land, sea or air]</ref><ref>{{cite web |author=Phil Ament |url=http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/mobilephone.htm |title=Mobile Phone History - Invention of the Mobile Phone |publisher=Ideafinder.com |access-date=2011-07-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110713002602/http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/mobilephone.htm |archive-date=July 13, 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref>  A system designed by Motorola also operated in the Washington D.C./Baltimore area from summer 1982 and became a full public service later the following year.<ref>Visited and evaluated by a group of (soon-to-be) British Telecoms staff (including writer) in September 1982.</ref>  Japan's first commercial radiotelephony service was launched by [[Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation|NTT]] in 1979.

The first fully automatic [[1G|first generation]] cellular system was the [[Nordic Mobile Telephone]] (NMT) system, simultaneously launched in 1981 in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tekniskamuseet.se/mobilen/engelska/1980_90.shtml |title=Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology |publisher=Tekniskamuseet.se |access-date=2009-07-29 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081022043906/http://www.tekniskamuseet.se/mobilen/engelska/1980_90.shtml |archive-date=October 22, 2008 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> NMT was the first mobile phone network featuring international [[roaming]]. The Swedish electrical engineer [[Östen Mäkitalo]] started to work on this vision in 1966, and is considered as the father of the NMT system and some also consider him the father of the cellular phone.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sharelie-download.com/?p=156 |title=Mobile and technology: The Basics of Mobile Phones |publisher=Sharelie-download.com |access-date=2011-07-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716051319/http://www.sharelie-download.com/?p=156 |archive-date=July 16, 2011 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mobilen50ar.se/eng/FaktabladENGFinal.pdf |title=Facts about the Mobile |access-date=2011-07-11 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100813122017/http://www.mobilen50ar.se/eng/FaktabladENGFinal.pdf |archive-date=August 13, 2010 |df=mdy }}</ref>

There was a rapid growth of [[wireless]] telecommunications towards the end of the 20th century, primarily due to the introduction of [[digital signal processing]] in [[wireless communications]], driven by the development of low-cost, [[very large-scale integration]] (VLSI) [[RF CMOS]] (radio-frequency [[complementary MOS]]) technology.<ref name="Srivastava"/>

In 1990, [[AT&T Bell Labs]] engineers [[Jesse Russell]], Farhad Barzegar and Can A. Eryaman filed a patent for a digital mobile phone that supports the transmission of digital data. Their patent was cited several years later by [[Nokia]] and [[Motorola]] when they were developing 2G digital mobile phones.<ref name=":27">{{Cite patent|number=US5257397A|title=Mobile data telephone|fdate=1990-08-13|pridate=1990-08-13|gdate=1993-10-26 (filed 1990-08-13)|invent1=Barzegar|invent2=Eryaman|invent3=Russell|invent4=Schroeder|inventor1-first=Farhad|inventor2-first=Can A.|inventor3-first=Jesse E.|inventor4-first=Robert E.|url=https://patents.google.com/patent/US5257397A/en}}</ref>

In 1991, [[WiLAN]] founders Hatim Zaghloul and Michel Fattouche invented [[wideband]] [[orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing]] (WOFDM), the basis for wideband [[wireless communication]] applications,<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Hassanien |first1=Aboul Ella |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zx9LDQAAQBAJ&pg=PR14 |title=Proceedings of the International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Systems and Informatics 2016 |last2=Shaalan |first2=Khaled |last3=Gaber |first3=Tarek |last4=Azar |first4=Ahmad Taher |last5=Tolba |first5=M. F. |date=2016-10-20 |publisher=[[Springer Science+Business Media|Springer]] |isbn=978-3-319-48308-5 |pages=xiv |language=en}}</ref> including [[4G]] mobile communications.<ref name="ergen">{{cite book |author=Ergen |first=Mustafa |title=Mobile Broadband: including WiMAX and LTE |publisher=Springer Science+Business Media |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-387-68189-4 |doi=10.1007/978-0-387-68192-4}}</ref>

The advent of cellular technology encouraged European countries to co-operate in the development of a pan-European cellular technology to rival those of the US and Japan. This resulted in the [[GSM]] system, the initials originally from the ''Groupe Spécial Mobile'' that was charged with the specification and development tasks but latterly as the 'Global System for Mobile Communications'. The GSM standard eventually spread outside Europe and is now the most widely used cellular technology in the world and the de facto standard. The industry association, the GSMA, now represents 219 countries and nearly 800 mobile network operators.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.gsmworld.com/membership/full_members.htm |title=Full Members ~ GSM World |publisher=Gsmworld.com |access-date=2011-07-11 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110711132322/http://www.gsmworld.com/membership/full_members.htm |archive-date=July 11, 2011 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> There are now estimated to be over 5 billion phone subscriptions according to the "[[List of countries by number of mobile phones in use]]" (although some users have multiple subscriptions, or inactive subscriptions), which also makes the mobile phone the most widely spread technology and the most common electronic device in the world.<ref name="reuters50">{{cite web |title=Global cellphone penetration reaches 50 pct |website=[[Reuters]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230426065924/https://www.reuters.com/article/cellphones-world-idINL2917209520071129 |archive-date=2023-04-26 |url-status=live |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/cellphones-world-idINL2917209520071129}}</ref>

The first mobile phone to enable internet connectivity and wireless email, the [[Nokia Communicator]], was released in 1996, creating a new category of multi-use devices called smartphones. In 1999 the first mobile internet service was launched by NTT DoCoMo in Japan under the [[i-Mode]] service. By 2007 over 798 million people around the world accessed the internet or equivalent mobile internet services such as [[Wireless Application Protocol|WAP]] and i-Mode at least occasionally using a mobile phone rather than a personal computer.