The Mobile Phone - Then and Now
It's very likely that many of you remember your first truly mobile phone. For most of us it was two tin cans tied together that allowed us to talk to our brother or sister from across the house. It was quite amazing how sound carried across that 16 feet of string.
Tin cans and string aside, it's time to talk about some real mobile phone history. Many of us have owned mobile phones with titles like 1G, 2G, or 3G attached to them. But, for many people, those numbers don't mean a whole lot. As always, we're here to help.
The G ratings of your mobile phone actually refer to generations. 1G refers to first generation, 2G to second generation, and so on. In between there were also 2.5G, 2.75G, and a few more. Let's cover each generation to get a better idea of what each one was.
In the early 80's the first mobile phones become available. The first models were about the size of a briefcase, and the amazing technology allowed you to talk on the move (and they only weighed about 15kgs).
1G Mobile Phones: Eventually someone figured out how to make the phones more portable, and 1G mobile phones were born. These phones were still quite bulky, and weighed in at 1 to 2 kgs for most models. Motorolla were the big players in the beginning.
2G Mobile Phones: Next came 2G in the 1990's. These phones were much smaller in size, and new functionality was born. SMS messaging became available, and for the first time it was possible to view media on a mobile phone (at a very high cost). At this point everyone wanted a piece of the mobile phone business and there was no standardization. One mobile phone tended to be made for one network, and the mobile phone companies all tended to work on their own.
As these phones evolved throughout the 90's they actually moved into 2.5G and 2.75G. These new generations were able to take advantage of digital communications, instead of the older GSM networks.
3G Mobile Phones: In 2001, the third generation of mobiles was born. These new phones had features like internet access, streaming media, and they were all built around IMT-2000 standards. They were also built entirely for a digital mobile phone network (the reason it's called a 3G connection).
These are the mobile phones that you use today, but another evolution is very likely to occur soon as the standards these phones were built around limit their data speed.
The Future of Cells: With limits of 2MBits/s on the current generation of mobiles, another change is very likely to occur soon. Data access speeds are everything, with the popularity of streaming media and VoIP on mobiles growing rapidly. It is expected that we may see a new generation of Internet based mobile phones in the near future with some of these are already becoming available.
