Nokia X6
Nokia X6.Org
The Mobile Phone
Nokia X6 is just one example out of many of the mobile phone. The mobile phone in short is an electronic device that is used for mobile telecommunications, text messaging or data transmission over a cellular network of specialized base stations which are known as cell site. The mobile phone is different to the cordless phone, which has range limitations, the satellite phone and the radio phone. Unlike the radio telephone the mobile phone will give you full duplex communication. Most of the mobile phones today are connected to a cellular network which incorporates switching points and base stations which are owned by a mobile network operator. As well as having the standard voice functions, mobile phones can also support a vast array of services such as SMS for text messaging, email and the ability to log on to the internet. The International Telecommunication Union estimated that there were approximately 4.6 billion mobile phone subscriptions at the end of 2009.
History of Mobile Phones
It was in 1908 when the whole mobile phone phenomenon began. Nathan B Stubblefield from Murray in Kentucky applied for a patent for a wireless telephone that was issued to him. This patent of his was applied to cave radio telephones. In 1947 cells for mobile phone base stations were invented by Bell Labs engineers at AT&T and these cells were even more further developed during the 1960’s also by Bell Labs. Reginald Fessenden invented the Radiophone which has a long and varied history and were used throughout the Second World War by the military. Hand held mobile radio devices have been available since 1973. But it was George Sweigert on June 10 1969 who filed the very first patent for a wireless phone.
In 1945 zero generation mobile phones were introduced. This used a single powerful base station which covered a very wide area and each telephone linked to it would basically monopolise a channel over that whole area when it was in use.
MTA was launched in Sweden in 1960. MTA was the first partly automatic car phone system Mobile System A. This MTA allowed calls to be made and received in the car from the public telephone network. You could ring out from the car by dialling your phone with a rotary dial that was the design in those days. But to ring a number in a car from a landline you had to go through the operator first. As well as having to go through the operator if you wished to call a car phone you had to know details such as which base station the car phone was covered by. This system was created by Sture Lauren along with other engineers at Televerket network operator. Ericsson was the company that provided switchboards for this system whilst one of Ericsson’s subsidiaries Svenska Radioaktiebolaget provided the telephones and base station equipment. MTA phones were actually vacuum tubes and relays and were heavy weighing almost 40 kg.Just imagine that! 40kgs for a handset. Nothing like the sleekness of the Nokia X6 today! In 1962 they were modernised a little and a new version was released called the Mobile System B (MTB). These phones were push button and used transistors to help improve the calling capabilities of the phone and improve upon it’s reliability. The MTD version was introduced in 1971 which allowed for more brands to be introduced which gained a lot of commercial success for those involved within it.
Martin Cooper who worked for Motorola as an executive and researcher is considered to be the inventor of the first hand held mobile phone that was not used with the car. His patent for a Radio Telephone System was filed October 17, 1973. Cooper made the first phone call on a hand held mobile phone on April, 1973 from a heavy portable handset that was modern for the time.
Network Technology
NTT launched the first commercially automated cellular network in Japan in 1979. This was the 1G generation also known as analog cellular telephony. This first network was for the whole of Tokyo which had 20 million people living there at the time. They used 23 base stations to support the whole network. It was successful and after 5 years of continual updating and expanding NTT had managed to cover the whole of Japan and the whole system became the first ever nation wide 2G network in the world. But with this achieve and success there are always competitors and other companies not far behind. The Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) was the second launch of 1G networks in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. This took place in 1981 and this network was the first to have roaming on an International basis. The UK, Mexico and Canada were the next countries to follow suit and launch 1G networks during the early 1980’s. In America the first 1G network was launched in 1983 by Ameritech and they used the famous first hand held mobile phone which was the Motorola DynaTAC. But there was not stopping the technology in this industry. Bell Labs continued to research and develop and in 1984 they developed the technology further which used multiple base stations, cell sites, which provided service to small areas, a cell. These cell sites were overlapped which meant that same channels could be used for different phone calls and conversations.
Radiolinja launched the first modern network technology on digital 2G in Finland in 1991 on the GSM standard. This introduction in turn was responsible for the introduction of competition within mobile telecoms. Radiolinja had put up a challenge to Telecom Finland who at the time were running a 1G NMT network. It was in Finland in 1993 that the first data services began to appear on mobile phones with the now much used SMS service. It was also around this time that mobiles were first tested to see if they could be successful in being used to actually buy and pay things. First trials to see if a mobile phone could purchase Coca Cola from a specially adapted machine began in 1998. However the first actual commercial payments that were made using this technology were for car parking in Sweden that was officially launched in Norway in 1999. The Philippines was the first country to use a mobile phone commercial system to mimic banks and credit cards in 1999 done by mobile operators Globe and Smart. As regards to the internet, which can be accessed using the Nokia X6, the first full internet service on mobile phones was introduced in 1999 by NTT DoCoMo in Japan.
NTT DoMoCo was again at the forefront with it’s first commercial release of 3G on the WCDMA standard in 2001. All of the standard 2G networks became compliant with the 3G networks with the Revision A to EV-DO.And with this introduction of 3G came a whole new load of technology and applications that we are all now familiar with on such mobile handsets as the Nokia X6.
Just released as well now is the 4G generation which offers us broadband wireless access. It is intended that the 4G network will completely replace the current 3G network. 4G should be able to give us a comprehensive and secure IP solution where voice, data and streamed multimedia can be given to us the user on a basis of anytime and anywhere. These solutions will have a much higher date rate than existing and previous generations. Sprint has a 4G network in some selected areas and it is estimated that more wireless companies will set up and launch 4G generation networks in 2011.
Handsets
Mobile phones come in several categories. You have you basic mobile phones to rather sophisticated examples like music phones or camera phones. The selections are pretty endless and due to technology they are always evolving. There are also smart phones and the first smart phone was released in 1996 bu Nokia. It was the Nokia 9000 Communicator. But such is the technology, research and development within the mobile phone industry phones that were modern and high tech say 5 years ago are nowadays out of date. Mobile phones have become smaller and the new generations of microchips have more power thus enabling phones to have more features.
From what was once a basic phone that made and received phone calls the mobile phone nowadays can be expected to be loaded with features and abilities such as SMS messaging, GPS navigation, music players, video players, streaming video, personal organisers, built in cameras, camcorders, games, infrared, Bluetooth capabilities, memory card readers, email capabilities, internet connections and now the latest thing is touch screen mobile phones like the Nokia x6.
Software and applications
The most used data application on the mobile phone is the SMS messaging with at least 74% of mobile phone users sometime or other sending an SMS. This market is huge in commercial terms for the suppliers and in 2007 the SMS messaging market was responsible for a staggering 100 billion dollars of revenue in turnover. The first SMS message to be sent was from a computer to a mobile phone in 1992 and the first mobile phone to mobile phone SMS was sent in 1993 in Finland.
Still on the huge revenue front other data services such as music, gaming and gambling generated 31 billion dollars of revenue. So as you can see there revenues created in the mobile phone industry are huge to say the least. The effect of this though should be good news for the consumer as big markets always generate interest and companies will seek a way to get a piece of the pie. This means that prices will always come down and technology will always increase and get better. In 1999 NTT DoMoCo introduced it’s mobile internet service I-Mode. Today this is the world’s largest mobile internet service and actually has the same levels of revenue as Google.
Power source
Every mobile phone needs a power source in which enables it to function. This power source is the rechargeable battery. When the battery runs down there are several ways to recharge it. You can use a USB, mains power, cigarette lighters in vehicles with an adaptor and a dynamo. Last year even wireless charging became a reality with the first wireless charger being released.
But this year mobile phone charging is becoming universal and the majority of mobile phone manufacturers have all agreed to standardise the mobile phone charger and use the Micro-USB. Those that have agreed and signed up to this include Nokia, Apple, LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.
The batteries in mobile phones are also another source of research and development. Originally the most common battery used was that of a nickel metal hydride because they had a low size and low weight. Lithium ion batteries are sometimes used because they are lighter and do not have the voltage depression that their counterpart nickel metal hydride batteries have. However though most of the mobile phone makers have now decided to supply lithium polymer batteries with their mobile handsets instead of the lithium ion because they are even more lighter and they can actually make that type of battery into another shape other than the usual cube. The Nokia X6 is supplied with a lithium polymer battery when bought new. This is good for revolutionising the design in new handsets that they decide to produce. But as with everything in research new alternatives are always sought after and many mobile phone makers are researching new methods on the phone battery. Such things as solar cells are being researched and even Coco Cola has been looked at as a possible power source.
