The mobile phone that we now know and apparently love can be traced back to 1956, when two Swedish telecom companies managed to develop what is considered to be the world’s first ever fully automated mobile phone system. These companies were TeliaSonera and Ericsson, and their creation allowed for calls to be made and received in a car for the first time in history, whilst still using the public phone system. The fully automated capability meant that there was no longer a need for the middle man, and so the role of the operator who had previously connected calls was made redundant. Their innovative, life changing work attracted huge amounts of attention, both nationally and worldwide.
By the time news of TeliaSonera and Ericsson’s work had spread around the world, The Mobile System A, or MTA, had effectively been developed by two men working as engineers at Televerket, another Swedish company. The switchboard and base station for the system were both provided by Ericsson, while the Ericsson owned company Svenska Radioaktiebolaget, or SRA, provided the telephones themselves, along with Marconi. From then on, developments in mobile phone technology seemed to soar. It was less than ten years later that a second, more modern system titled Mobile System B (MTB) was also launched. This newer model utilised transistors that enhanced the calling capacity of the phone, and made it much more reliable to operate.
The first generation or 1G of mobile phones had emerged by 1981. The big system was the Nordic Mobile Telephone System, under Osten Mäkitalo, who is considered by many to be the father of all mobile telephones. He worked with the companies of Televerket and TeliaSonera, and it was he along with Ericsson’s Jan Uddenfeldt who made lots of developments towards today’s GSM phone system, the Global System for Mobile Communication. This joint European project was launched in 1991. The third generation, or 3G, was launched in 2002. 4G is in development, with the newest technology set to usurp its predecessor in the next few years. To see a huge range of the latest mobile phone handsets visit dialaphone today.
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