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8th September - 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) Communications.
According 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.
"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.
But 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."
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