Cellular. Where are you from?

"Who invented these debility phones?" - a charming, unfamiliar grandmother affectionately murmured near my entrance. Her gaze was directed to the playground where no one was playing or running. Mothers, dads and their children - all ... were concentrated in their phones! I involuntarily also thought, but really, who is this person and how did this "total mobilophilism" in our life happen?

Today we will talk about mobile cellular communication, its emergence and the overall situation. I will tell you about the development and possibilities of all generations. As always - briefly, without complications and directly in the ears ...

Humanity has always sought to communicate at a distance. Fires with smoke, drums, messengers-gold heels, pigeons. We can not do without it. No way. With the advent of electricity, this method of communication and information transmission acquired a completely different form. I would even say that it is revolutionary another. But there was one difficulty. The location of people who communicate at a distance was clearly fixed.

In 1888, a scientist with a sonorous surname Hertz discovered electromagnetic waves and ways of detecting them, so to speak. On the basis of these discoveries, Henry Hertz invents the world's first radio receiver. Further more. Soon one artful Italian introduced a radio signal transceiver into his steam car. It was possible to transfer only short and long impulses (Morse code already existed), and the whole design had a very large weight and volume. This can be considered the first mobile connection. Technology was improved, it began to be used by the police and medical aid. But all this was one-sided contact. A sort of pager of those times. The signal was sent to the police car, the inspector searched for the nearest wired phone and called back.

In 1934, the US Congress established the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is responsible not only for wire communication, but also controls the provision of radio frequency bands. Priority is given to civil service, medicine, rescuers. Further taxi drivers and various peace and necessary services. Private individuals rent a frequency does not cause any interest, in view of the seeming futility. And only after the end of the Second World War did the interested ...

June 17, 1946, AT & T, the leader in telephony at that time, launches the world's first radiotelephone connection for private, non-poor customers. For example, only the tube weighed about 50 kg. But this did not frighten anyone, but even the opposite. The service began to gain momentum. And the problem arose again. Absolutely in an unexpected place. The frequencies that FCC distributed began to overlap and give terrible interference when communicating.

In 1947, two important events took place in the world of radiotelephony. First, employees of Bell Laboratories invent a transistor, which allowed to reduce the size of both the tubes and the equipment itself. Secondly, other employees of the same company offer the idea of ​​the principle of cellular organization of mobile networks. This allowed us to solve the problem of crossing signals close in frequency and even made it possible to use one frequency many times. The revolution is obvious!

It took a long twenty years before the world saw real cellular networks and a real mobile phone. In 1973, on the roof of a 51-story building, the world's first cellular base station was launched. It could serve 30 people and connect them to any landline phone. And made such a breakthrough - the company Motorola. The first phone was called Dina-TAC, and in the recorded time.

On April 3, 1973, Motorola's vice-president went out with a tube that weighed just over a kilogram to the streets of New York and called the most important of Bell Laboratories, saying:

Hello, Joel! This is Martin Cooper. We did it, his mother ...

Surprisingly, the first commercial cellular network with 250 subscribers and a signal frequency of 400 MHz appeared in Bahrain in 1978. Here's a story ...

Cellular communications started on the planet with big confident steps. More and more countries were aware of the benefits and advantages of this technology. But soon the world again faced two serious problems in this area. First - different frequencies in different countries did not allow guests to use their mobile phone. Second - the connection was still analog. Data security was out of the question. This was the first generation cellular communication!

In 1982, the European Communications Conference, which brought together 26 countries, creates a special group - Groupe Special Mobile. The group is working to create a single standard, and the digital version of cellular communication with a frequency of 900 MHz becomes the apogee. After thinking a little ahead and realizing the prospects, the group decides to introduce another frequency equal to 1800 MHz. The standard is called Global System for Mobile Communications, abbreviated to GSM. In 1992, first Finland, then England introduce the standard at the state level. And very quickly GSM standard began to disperse around the world.

It was even more interesting for us. In Russia. 26 years ago, Comrade Anatoly Sobchak made the first ever mobile phone call in the history of Russia. Not to anyone, but to the mayor of the city of Seattle, Norman Rice.

Delta Telecom is the name of the first cellular operator in Russia. The company worked on the American analogue standard NMT-450. The connection cost $ 5,000 space. This price included the phone itself (the model on the video about the first call) and maintenance. The device was programmed immediately at the factory, it did not have a SIM card.

In 1994, a new standard of communication, working at a frequency of 890 MHz. It was analog, too, but it had an advantage in terms of communication range and capacity of the networks themselves. Communication has changed significantly, and there is less interference. But the main breakthrough was that the weight of the tube decreased to 250-400 grams. Just like now. By the way, the last network of such a standard was disabled in 2010 in Novosibirsk.

GSM in Russia. First SIM cards
For such a large country like Russia, the emergence of digital cellular networks of the second generation, of course, was a landmark event. And dashing 90-s to this confirmation. With the advent of GSM, the weight of the handset has decreased, several telecom operators have appeared, it became possible to send SMS, the quality of the connection was good and the number of subscribers grew exponentially. The first commercial network was launched by the operator "MTS" in 1994. Personally, I remember the queue for sim cards and handsets. In the same year, North-West GSM began operating, which later became Megafon. These operators worked at 900 MHz, but in 1997, with more capacious networks and a frequency of 1800 MHz, Beeline came to the market. Roaming appears, and the price of communication with the consideration of competition begins to decline. More and more people can afford mobile communication. There is a legendary model Nokia 3310.

The next major era is the time when operators began to provide access to the Internet. Since then, the WAP protocol is my favorite protocol! Just think ... for a monthly fee of 15 bucks and per minute billing in the network, I received ... 64 kbps. And this is the maximum! Fantastic time.

As a competitor to GSM networks, other networks began to appear. I would even say this is another technology that developed in parallel with GSM. CDMA - a network operating at 450 MHz, which has a number of "chips", but still lost to the main players. A vivid example was the operator "Sky Link".

A surprising fact. Until a certain time, we in Russia needed permission to carry and use a mobile phone. This document had to be carried and presented at the first request of a policeman. Either a cruel fine. Nowhere else in the world has such practice existed. No comments…

We pass to the third generation of cellular communication. 2001 - appearance of the GPRS protocol and the first (slightly embarrassing) hobby for mobile Internet. The first operator to implement the protocol was Beeline, the others pulled up a bit later. GPRS did not deserve special respect from its subscribers, and there were few phones with its support. The maximum data rate was 170 kbps. For example, for 55 dollars you could buy a package of 200 MB. A vivid example of a phone with the GPRS protocol was Siemens S45.

Further, following the mobile logic, EDGE appears at a speed of 470 Kb / sec. More and more people forget about landline phones and use only cellular phones. In the courtyard of 2005. All cool, but ... Immediately, all three major operators are doing very nicely and there is UMTS. Epochal appearance of 3G networks. The speed is 2 MB / second. Manufacturers of telephones, smartphones, etc. in ecstasy. To imagine this time, look at the photo. These models will cause more than one hot tear ...

Prior to the release of the first iPhone there were 2 years)) ...

Intermediate (the word is what) the stage between the third and the fourth generation rewarded us with the appearance of so-called 3.5G networks. This includes HSPA (up to 15 MB / s) and HSPA + (up to 21 MB / s).

The first LTE (4G) network appeared in the city of Novosibirsk with operator Yota. The first phone to support the networks of the fourth generation was HTC Thunderbolt. Theoretically, LTE can operate at speeds over 300 MB, but practically the speed is in the region of 100 MB. Mass technology has been developing since 2012. It was released an incredible number of different models that support the generation of 4G.

Fact. Every resident of our country, including old people and children, has 2 purchased SIM cards. Communication in Russia is one of the cheapest in Europe and the world, in general.

Future generations (5G, 6G, 7G)
At present, we already know about the development of networks of the fifth generation. Some even had the opportunity to check these crazy speeds personally. With today's infrastructure of modern networks, the speed can reach 3-4 Gb / second. The limit at 5G is 20 Gb / s. Simply incredible speed! 6G - scientists promise by 2025-2027! But I think it will be sooner. Inadvertently not there pressed and monthly traffic as if it were not!).