1947
Bell Laboratories introduced the idea of cellular communications with the police car technology. The basic concept of cellular phones began, when researchers looked at crude mobile (car) phones and realized that by using small cells (range of service area) with frequency reuse they could increase the traffic capacity of mobile phones substantially. However at that time, the technology to do so was nonexistent
1968
AT&T and Bell Labs proposed a cellular system to the FCC of many small, low-powered, broadcast towers, each covering a ‘cell’ a few miles in radius and collectively covering a larger area. Each tower would use only a few of the total frequencies allocated to the system. As the phones traveled across the area, calls would be passed from tower to tower.
1973 (April)
The first call on a portable cell phone is made by Dr Martin Cooper, a former general manager for the systems division at Motorola, who is also considered the inventor of the first modern portable handset
1979
The first commercial cellular telephone system began operation in Tokyo
1982
FCC authorizes commercial cellular service for the USA
1987
Cellular telephone subscribers exceeded one million and the airways were crowded
1991
Commercial launch of cellular service based on GSM standard in Finland
Historyof Cellular Telephony
in India
1992
Telecommunication sector in India liberalized to bridge the gap through government spending & to provide additional resources for the nation’s telecom target. Private sector allowed participating.
1994
License for providing cellular mobile services granted by the government of India for the Metropolitan cites of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata & Chennai. Cellular mobile service to be duopoly (i.e. not more than two cellular mobile operators could be licensed in each telecom circle), under a fixed license fee regime for 10 years
1995(August)
Kolkata became the first metro to have a cellular network
1997
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is set up
1998
Annual foreign investment in telecom stands at Rs 17,756.4 million.
1999
FDI inflow into telecom sector falls by almost 90% to Rs. 2126.7 million. Tariff rebalancing exercise gets initiated
1999
National Telecom Policy is announced
2000
Amendment of TRAI Act FDI inflow drops further down to Rs 918 million
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