A History of Mobile Communications — 1995 to 2010

The late 1990s saw a massive growth in the number of mobile phone users across the developed world. By the year 2000 there were over 500 M users in OECD countries while in Nordic countries the penetration rate had reached 100% of the population. However, much of this growth was expected in the early 1990s as cellular operators concentrated on building their infrastructure. What was totally unexpected was the massive growth in the market for mobile multimedia around the year 2001. Initially, this was satisfied by second generation cellular networks, wireless LANs and digital broadcast systems followed by Third Generation Mobile Systems. This paper covers the history of mobile communications between 1995 and 2010 and examines how the synergies between entertainment, computung and telecommunications led to new applications and terminal devices supported by telecommunications and broadcast networks. We also examine how agent intelligence reduces complexity for personalised mobile multimedia and operational support systems.