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Mobile Phone Origins
A mobile telephone or cellular telephone (commonly, "mobile phone" or "cell phone") is a long-range, 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, packet switching for access to the Internet, 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 are satellite phones).
History
History of mobile phones
The introduction of cells for mobile phone base stations, invented in 1947 by Bell Labs engineers at AT&T, was further developed by Bell Labs during the 1960s. Radiophones have a long and varied history going back to 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 1983. Due to their low establishment costs and rapid deployment, mobile phone networks have since spread rapidly throughout the world, outstripping the growth of fixed telephony.
In 1945, the zero generation (0G) of mobile telephones was introduced. 0G mobile telephones, such as Mobile Telephone Service, were not officially categorized as mobile phones, since they did not support the automatic change of channel frequency during calls, which allows the user to move from one cell (the base station coverage area) to another cell, a feature called "handover".
In 1970, Bell Labs invented such a "call handoff" feature, which allowed mobile-phone users to travel through several cells during the same conversation. Motorola 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, they made the first call on a handheld mobile phone in April, 1973.
The first commercial 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) with the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) system in 1981. This was followed by a boom in mobile telephone usage, particularly in Northern Europe.
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. A decade later, 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, mobile phones have become increasingly handy over the years.
Culture and customs
In less than twenty years, mobile phones have gone from being rare and expensive pieces of equipment used primarily by the business elite to a pervasive low-cost personal item. In many countries, mobile phones now outnumber land-line telephones, with most adults and many children using mobile phones.
In the United States, 50% of children are using mobile phones. In many young adults' households the mobile phone has supplanted land-line telephones. In some areas in developing countries with scarce fixed-line infrastructure, the mobile phone has introduced telephony as such. It has given poor people in isolated communties access to services that are considered elementary human rights, such as medical and legal advice. However, the mobile phone is also banned in some countries like North Korea.
With high levels of mobile telephone penetration , mobile culture has evolved where the phone is a key social tool with people relying on their mobile phone address book to keep in touch with friends, not least by SMS, and a whole culture of "texting" has developed from this.
The commercial market in SMSs is growing. Many phones offer Instant Messenger services to increase the simplicity and ease of texting on phones. Mobile phones in Japan, offering Internet capabilities such as NTT DoCoMo's i-mode, offer text messaging via standard e-mail.
The mobile phone itself has also become a fashion object of totemic value, with users decorating, customizing, and accessorizing their mobile phones to reflect their personality. This has emerged as its own industry. The sale of commercial ringtones exceeded $2.5 billion in 2004.
Etiquette
The use of a mobile phone is prohibited in some train company carriages.
Mobile phone etiquette has become an important issue with cellular phones ringing at funerals, weddings, cinemas, and plays. Users often speak at increased volume which has led to places like book shops, libraries, movie theaters, doctors' offices, and houses of worship posting signs prohibiting the use of mobile phones, and in some places installing signal-jamming equipment to prevent usage (although in many countries, e.g., the United States, such equipment is currently illegal). Some new buildings such as auditoriums have installed wire mesh in the walls (turning the building into a Faraday cage) which prevents any signal getting through, but does not contravene the jamming laws.
Transportation providers, particularly those involving long-distance services, often offer a "quiet car" where phone use is prohibited, much like the designated non-smoking cars in the past. However many users tend to ignore this as it is rarely enforced, especially if the other cars are crowded and they have no choice but to go in the "quiet car". Mobile phone use on aircraft is also prohibited, because of concerns of possible interference with aircraft radio communications, although the airline Emirates have announced plans to allow limited mobile phone usage on some flights.
In any case, there are inconsistencies between practices allowed by different airlines and even on the same airline in different countries. For example, Northwest Airlines may allow the use of mobile phones immediately after landing on a domestic flight within the US, whereas they may state "not until the doors are open" on an international flight arriving in the Netherlands.
In April 2007 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officially grounded the idea of allowing passengers to use cell phones during a flight. In a similar vein signs are put up in UK petrol stations prohibiting the use of mobile phones due to hypothetical safety issues. Most schools in the United States have prohibited mobile phones in the classroom due to the large number of class disruptions that result from their use, the potential for cheating via text messaging, and the possibility of photographing someone without consent.
Use in disaster response
In Japan, mobile phone companies provide immediate notification of earthquakes and other natural disasters to their customers free of charge. In the event of an emergency, disaster response crews can locate trapped or injured people using the signals from their mobile phones or the small detonator of flare in the battery of every cellphone; an interactive menu accessible through the phone's Internet browser notifies the company if the user is safe or in distress
Use by drivers
Mobile phones and driving safety
Mobile-phone use while driving is common but controversial. While few jurisdictions have banned motorists from using mobile phones while driving outright, some have banned or restricted drivers from using hand-held mobile phones while exempting phones operated in a hands-free fashion.
It is generally agreed that using a hand-held mobile phone while driving is a distraction that brings risk of road traffic accidents. However, some studies have found similarly elevated accident rates among drivers using hands-free phones, suggesting that the distraction of a telephone conversation itself is the main safety problem.
Use of handheld mobile phones by drivers is illegal in many European countries and a number of Asian and South American countries and Australia. Use of hands-free mobiles is permitted, although the Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria has banned hands free for learner and first year provisional/probationary licence holders.
In Greece the use of mobile phone and hands free has been banned, while the use of bluetooth technology is permitted. However some countries like Japan ban mobile phone use while driving completely. Similar laws exist in six U.S. states with legislation proposed in 40 other states. The United States Department of Defense has outlawed the use of all mobile phones while driving on any DOD installation, unless a hands-free device is used. In Israel, it is common practice to pull over to the side of the road where possible to answer a mobile phone.
Applications
Mobile news services are expanding with many organizations providing "on-demand" news services by SMS. Some also provide "instant" news pushed out by SMS. Mobile telephony also facilitates activism and public journalism being explored by Reuters and Yahoo and small independent news companies such as Jasmine News in Sri Lanka.
Power
Mobile phones obtain power generally from batteries which can be recharged from mains power, a USB port or a cigarette lighter port in an automobile. The most common form of cell phone batteries were Nickel metal-hydride. These types of batteries are ideal for their size and weight. The other common type of batteries used in Cell Phones are Lithium-Ion, which are lighter and do not have the voltage depression that Nickel Metal Hydride batteries do.
Many mobile phone manufacturers have now switched to using Lithium-Polymer batteries as opposed to the older Lithium-Ion, the main advantages of this being even lower weight and the possibility to make the battery a shape other than strict cuboid.
Human health impacts
Since the introduction of mobile phones, concerns have been raised about the potential health impacts from cellular phone use. Studies from the Institute of Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute and researchers at the Danish Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Copenhagen do not show any link between cellular phone use and cancer.
The Danish study only covered analog mobile phone usage up through 1995, and subjects who started mobile phone usage after 1995 were counted as non-users in the study. However, a study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer of 4,500 users found a statistically significant link between tumor frequency and mobile phone use.
Environmental impacts
Recent results suggest the possibility that mobile phone masts are associated with the "Colony Collapse Disorder" (CCD) which has reduced bee hive numbers by up to 75% in many areas, especially near cities in the US and significance as bees play an essential role in the fertilization of many crops, trees and other vegetation.
The Independent newspaper cited a scientific study claiming it provided evidence for the theory that mobile phone masts are a major cause in the collapse of bee populations, with controlled experiments demonstrating a rapid and catastrophic effect on individual hives near masts. Mobile phones were in fact not covered in the study, and the original researchers have since emphatically disavowed any connection between their research, cell phones, and CCD, specifically indicating that the Independent article had misinterpreted their results and created "a horror story".
Technology
Mobile phone towers
Mobile phones and the network they operate under vary significantly from provider to provider, and nation to nation. However, all of them communicate through electromagnetic radio waves with a cell site base station, the antennas of which are usually mounted on a tower, pole or building.
The phones have a low-power transceiver that transmits voice and data to the nearest cell sites, usually not more than 5 to 8 miles (approximately 8 to 13 kilometers) away. When the mobile phone or data device is turned on, it registers with the mobile telephone exchange, or switch, with its unique identifiers, and will then be alerted by the mobile switch when there is an incoming telephone call.
The handset constantly listens for the strongest signal being received from the surrounding base stations. As the user moves around the network, the mobile device will "handoff" to various cell sites during calls, or while waiting (idle) between calls it will reselect cell sites.
A basic rule of thumb says that a typical national cellular network costs 1 billion dollars to build and needs 10,000 base stations (Source T Ahonen, m-Profits, Wiley 2002). National variances need to be considered, where a city state like Singapore or Hong Kong is smaller to deploy, while a vast country like Australia, Canada etc will need a larger network. But the rule of thumb is remarkably useful in most cases.
Cell sites have relatively low-power (often only one or two watts) radio transmitters which broadcast their presence and relay communications between the mobile handsets and the switch. The switch in turn connects the call to another subscriber of the same wireless service provider or to the public telephone network, which includes the networks of other wireless carriers. Many of these sites are camouflaged to blend with existing environments, particularly in scenic areas.
The dialogue between the handset and the cell site is a stream of digital data that includes digitized audio (except for the first generation analog networks). The technology that achieves this depends on the system which the mobile phone operator has adopted. Some technologies include AMPS for analog, and D-AMPS, CDMA2000, GSM, GPRS, EV-DO, and UMTS for digital communications. Each network operator has a unique radio frequency band.