Mobile phone

Mobile phone

Mobile phone from 2008

Inventor Martin Cooper

Launch year 1973

Company Motorola

Available? Worldwide

A mobile phone (also called mobile, cellular phone, cell phone or handphone) is
an electronic device used for full duplex two-way radio telecommunications over a cellular
network of base stations known as cell sites. Mobile phones differ from cordless telephones, which
only offer telephone service within limited range through a single base station attached to a fixed land
line, for example within a home or an office. Low-end mobile phones are often referred to as feature
phones, whereas high-end mobile phones that offer more advanced computing ability are referred to
as smart phones.

A mobile phone allows its user to make and receive telephone calls to and from
the public telephone network which includes other mobiles and fixed line phones across the world. It
does this by connecting to a cellular network owned by a mobile network operator. A key feature of the
cellular network is that it enables seamless telephone calls even when the user is moving around wide
areas via a process known ashandoff or handover.

In addition to being a telephone, modern mobile phones also support many

additional services, and accessories, such as SMS (or text) messages, email, Internet access,
gaming, Bluetooth, infrared, camera, MMS messaging, MP3 player, radio and GPS.

The first hand held phone was demonstrated by Martin Cooper of Motorola in 1973,
using a handset weighing in at two kilos. In the year 1990, 12.4 million people worldwide had cellular
subscriptions. By the end of 2009, only 20 years later, the number of mobile cellular subscriptions
worldwide reached approximately 4.6 billion, 370 times the 1990 number, penetrating the developing
economies and reaching the bottom of the economic pyramid.

History

Several examples of non-flip mobile phones, from the early 2000s.

Radiophones have a long and varied history going back to Reginald Fessenden's invention and shore-
to-ship demonstration of radio telephony, through the Second World War with military use of radio
telephony links and civil services in the 1950s, while hand-held mobile radio devices have been
available since 1973.

The first mobile telephone call made from a car occurred in St. Louis, Missouri, USA on June 17, 1946,
but the system was impractical from what is considered a portable handset today. The equipment
weighed 80 lbs, and the AT&T service, basically a massive party line, cost $30 USD per month plus 30
to 40 cents per local call.

In 1960, the world’s first partly automatic car phone system, Mobile System A (MTA), was launched in
Sweden. MTA phones were composed of vacuum tubes and relays, and had a weight of 40 kg. In
1962, a more modern version called Mobile System B (MTB) was launched, which was a push-button
telephone, and which used transistors in order to enhance the telephone’s calling capacity and
improve its operational reliability. In 1971 the MTD version was launched, opening for several different
brands of equipment and gaining commercial success.

Martin Cooper, a Motorola researcher and executive is considered to be the inventor of

the first practical mobile phone for hand-held use in a non-vehicle setting, after a long race againstBell
Labs for the first portable mobile phone. Using a modern, if somewhat heavy portable handset, Cooper
made the first call on a hand-held mobile phone on April 3, 1973 to his rival, Dr.Joel S. Engel of Bell
Labs.

The first commercially automated cellular network (the 1G generation) was launched in
Japan by NTT in 1979, initially in the metropolitan area of Tokyo. Within five years, the NTT network
had been expanded to cover the whole population of Japan and became the first nation-wide 1G
network. In 1981, this was followed by the simultaneous launch of the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT)
system in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.[9] NMT was the first mobile phone network featuring
international roaming. The first 1G network launched in the USA was Chicago based Ameritech in
1983 using the Motorola DynaTAC mobile phone. Several countries then followed in the early 1980s
including the UK, Mexico and Canada.

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.

In 2001 the first commercial launch of 3G (Third Generation) was again in Japan by NTT
DoCoMo on the WCDMA standard.

One of the newest 3G technologies to be implemented is High-Speed Downlink Packet

Access (HSDPA). It is an enhanced 3G (third generation) mobile telephony communications
protocol in the High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) family, also coined 3.5G, 3G+ or turbo 3G, which
allows networks based on Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) to have higher data
transfer speeds and capacity.

Power supply

Mobile phones generally obtain power from rechargeable batteries. There are a variety of
ways used to charge cell phones, including USB, portable batteries, mains power (using an AC
adapter), cigarette lighters (using an adapter), or a dynamo. In 2009, wireless charging became a
reality, and the first wireless charger was released for consumer use.[12] Charger efficiency
 The world's five largest handset makers introduced a new rating system in November 2008 to help
consumers more easily identify the most energy-efficient chargers

The majority of energy lost in a mobile phone charger is in its no load condition, when the
mobile phone is not connected but the charger has been left plugged in and using power. To combat
this in November 2008 the top five mobile phone manufacturers Nokia, Samsung, LG Electronics Sony
Ericsson and Motorola set up a star rating system to rate the efficiency of their chargers in the no-load
condition. Starting at zero stars for >0.5 W and going up to the top five star rating for <0.03 W (30 mW)
no load power

A number of semiconductor companies offering fly back controllers, such as Power

Integrations and Cam Semi , now claim that the five star standard can be achieved with use of their
product.

Battery

Formerly, the most common form of mobile phone batteries were nickel metal-hydride, as
they have a low size and weight. Lithium ion batteries are sometimes used, as they 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.[18] Mobile phone manufacturers have been experimenting with
alternative power sources, including solar cells and Coca Cola.

SIM card
SIM card

GSM mobile phones require a small microchip called a Subscriber Identity Module or SIM Card,
to function. The SIM card is approximately the size of a small postage stamp and is usually placed
underneath the battery in the rear of the unit. The SIM securely stores the service-subscriber key
(IMSI) used to identify a subscriber on mobile telephony devices (such as mobile phones
and computers). The SIM card allows users to change phones by simply removing the SIM card from
one mobile phone and inserting it into another mobile phone or broadband telephony device.

A SIM card contains its unique serial number, internationally unique number of the mobile
user (IMSI), security authentication and ciphering information, temporary information related to the
local network, a list of the services the user has access to and two passwords (PIN for usual use and
PUK for unlocking).

SIM cards are available in three standard sizes. The first is the size of a credit card (85.60 mm
× 53.98 mm x 0.76 mm). The newer, most popular miniature version has the same thickness but a
length of 25 mm and a width of 15 mm, and has one of its corners truncated (chamfered) to prevent
misinsertion. The newest incarnation known as the 3FF or micro-SIM has dimensions of 15 mm ×
12 mm. Most cards of the two smaller sizes are supplied as a full-sized card with the smaller card held
in place by a few plastic links; it can easily be broken off to be used in a device that uses the smaller
SIM.

The first SIM card was made in 1991 by Munich smart card maker Giesecke & Devrient for
the Finnish wireless network operator Radiolinja. Giesecke & Devrient sold the first 300 SIM cards to
Elisa (ex. Radiolinja).

Those cell phones that do not use a SIM Card have the data programmed in to their memory.
This data is accessed by using a special digit sequence to access the "NAM" as in "Name" or number
programming menu. From there, information can be added including: a new number for the phone,
new Service Provider numbers, new emergency numbers, new Authentication Key or A-Key code, and
a Preferred Roaming List or PRL. However, to prevent the phone being accidentally disabled or
removed from the network, the Service Provider typically locks this data with a Master Subsidiary Lock
(MSL). The MSL also locks the device to a particular carrier when it is sold as a loss leader.
 The MSL applies to the SIM only so once the contract has been completed the MSL still
applies to the SIM. The phone however, is also initially locked by the manufacturer into the Service
Providers MSL. This lock may be disabled so that the phone can use other Service Providers SIM
cards. Most phones purchased outside the US are unlocked phones because there are numerous
Service Providers close to one another or have overlapping coverage. The cost to unlock a phone
varies but is usually very cheap and is sometimes provided by independent phone vendors.

A similar module called a Removable User Identity Module is present in some CDMA
networks, notably in China.

Mobile phones in society

Market share

Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants 1997–2007

The world's largest individual mobile operator is China Mobile with over 500 million mobile
phone subscribers The world's largest mobile operator group by subscribers is UK
based VodafoneThere are over 600 mobile operators and carriers in commercial production
worldwide.Over 50 mobile operators have over 10 million subscribers each, and over 150 mobile
operators have at least one million subscribers by the end of 2009 (source wireless intelligence).

Source Date Nokia Samsung LG Electronics RIM Sony Ericsson Others References

[20]
IDC Q1/2010 36.6% 21.8% 9.2% 3.6% 3.6% 25.3%

[21]
Gartner Q1/2010 35.0% 20.6% 8.6% 3.4% 3.1% 29.3%
 Other manufacturers include Apple Inc., Audiovox (now UTStarcom), CECT, HTC
Corporation, Fujitsu, Kyocera, Mitsubishi Electric, NEC,Panasonic, Palm, Matsushita, Pantech
Wireless Inc., Philips, Qualcomm Inc., Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM), Sagem, Sanyo, Sharp,Sierra
Wireless, SK Teletech, T&A Alcatel, Huawei, Trium, Toshiba and Vidalco. There are also specialist
communication systems related to (but distinct from) mobile phones.

Comparison to similar systems

Car phone

A type of telephone permanently mounted in a vehicle, these often have more powerful
transmitters, an external antenna and loudspeaker for hands free use. They usually connect
to the same networks as regular mobile phones.

Cordless telephone (portable phone)

Cordless phones are telephones which use one or more radio handsets in place of a wired
handset. The handsets connect wirelessly to a base station, which in turn connects to a
conventional land line for calling. Unlike mobile phones, cordless phones use private base
stations (belonging to the land-line subscriber), which are not shared.

Professional Mobile Radio

Advanced professional mobile radio systems can be very similar to mobile phone systems.
Notably, the IDEN standard has been used as both a private trunked radio system as well as
the technology for several large public providers. Similar attempts have even been made to
use TETRA, the European digital PMR standard, to implement public mobile networks.

Radio phone

This is a term which covers radios which could connect into the telephone network. These
phones may not be mobile; for example, they may require a mains power supply, or they may
require the assistance of a human operator to set up a PSTN phone call.

Satellite phone

This type of phone communicates directly with an artificial satellite, which in turn relays calls
to a base station or another satellite phone. A single satellite can provide coverage to a much
greater area than terrestrial base stations. Since satellite phones are costly, their use is
typically limited to people in remote areas where no mobile phone coverage exists, such as
mountain climbers, mariners in the open sea, and news reporters at disaster sites.

IP Phone

This type of phone delivers or receives calls over internet, LAN or WAN networks
using VoIP as opposed to traditional CDMA and GSM networks. In business, the majority of
these IP Phones tend to be connected via wired Ethernet, however wireless varieties do exist.
Several vendors have developed standalone WiFi phones. Additionally, some cellular mobile
phones include the ability to place VoIP calls over cellular high speed data networks and/or
wireless internet.