1 Why Phones Are Different
1 Why Phones Are Different 1.1 The Origins of Mobile Phones The first mobile phone networks evolved from the technologies used in specialist mobile phone radio systems, such as train cab and taxi radios, and the closed networks used by emergency and police services and similar military systems. The first ever open, public network (i.e., open to subscribing cus- tomers rather than restricted to a dedicated group of private users) was the Autoradiopuhelin (ARP, or car radio phone) network in Finland. It was a car-based system, inaugurated in 1971 by the Finnish state telephone company, that peaked at around 35 000 subscribers [Haikio 2002, p. 158]. A more advanced system, the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) net- work, was opened a decade later in 1981 as a partnership between the Nordic state telecommunications monopolies (of Denmark, Finland, Nor- way and Sweden), achieving 440 000 subscribers by the mid-1990s, that is, more than a ten-fold increase on ARP [Haikio 2002, p. 158]. Unlike ARP, a car boot was no longer required to house the radio hardware. Ericsson, and later Nokia, were primary suppliers of infrastructure and phones, helping to give both companies an early edge in commercial mobileCOPYRIGHTED phone systems. MATERIAL Elsewhere, Motorola and AT&T competed to introduce mobile phone services in the Americas, with the first Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) network from AT&T going public in 1984. European networks based on an AMPS derivative (Total Access Communication System, TACS) were opened in 1985 in the UK (Vodafone), Italy, Spain and France.1 Germany had already introduced its own system in 1981.
[Show full text]