Mobile phone - The
mobile
phone,
cellular phone, or simply
cell phone is a long-range, portable
electronic device used for mobile communication that uses a network of specialized base stations known as
cell sites. In addition to the standard voice function of a
telephone, current mobile phones can support many additional
services such as
SMS for
text messaging,
email,
packet switching for access to the
Internet, and
MMS for sending and receiving
photos and
video. Most current mobile phones connect to a
cellular network of
base stations (
cell sites), which is in turn interconnected to the
public switched telephone network (
PSTN) (the exception is
satellite phones).
History of mobile phones Various cell phones from the past 10–15 years.
Legend:
1.
NEC Cellstar 500 series (1992)
2.
Nokia 2110 series (1994)
3.
Nokia 5120 (1998)
4.
Kyocera 2135 (2002)
5.
Audiovox CDM8300 (2002)
6.
Samsung SCH-A650 (2004)
There is one U.S. patent, Patent Number 887357 for a wireless telephone, issued 1908 to
Nathan B. Stubblefield of
Murray, Kentucky. He applied this to "cave radio" telephones and not directly to cellular telephony as we know it today.However, the introduction
of cells for mobile phone base stations, invented in 1947 by
Bell Labs engineers at
AT&T, was further developed by Bell Labs during the 1960s.
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 cellular radio devices have been available since 1973. Due to their low establishment costs
and rapid deployment, mobile phone networks have since spread rapidly throughout the world, outstripping the growth of
fixed telephony.
In 1945, the zero generation (
0G) of mobile telephones was introduced. 0G mobile telephones, such as
Mobile Telephone Service, were not officially categorized as mobile phones, since they did not support the automatic change of channel frequency during
calls, which allows the user to move from one cell (the base station
coverage area) to another cell, a feature called "
handover".
In 1984,
Bell Labs invented such a "call handoff" feature, which allowed mobile-phone users to travel through several cells during the same
conversation.
Motorola is widely considered to be the inventor of the first practical mobile phone for handheld use in a non-vehicle setting. Using
a modern, if somewhat heavy portable handset, Motorola manager
Martin Cooper made the first call on a handheld mobile phone on
April 3,
1973.
The first commercial cellular network was launched in Japan by
NTT in 1979. Fully automatic cellular networks were first introduced in the early to mid 1980s (the
1G generation) with the
Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) system in 1981. This was followed by a boom in mobile telephone usage, particularly in Northern Europe.
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. A decade later, the first commercial launch of 3G (Third Generation) was again in Japan by NTT
DoCoMo on the WCDMA standard. Until the early 1990s, most mobile phones were too large to be carried in a jacket pocket, so
they were typically installed in vehicles as
car phones. With the
miniaturization of digital components, mobile phones have become increasingly handy over the years.
Today, video and TV services are
driving forward third generation (3G) deployment. And in the future, low cost, high speed data will driveforward the fourth
generation (4G) as short-range communication emerges.Service and application ubiquity, with a high degree of personalization
and synchronization between various user appliances,will be another driver. At the same time, it is probable that the radio
access network will evolve from a centralized architecture to a distributed one.
RECYCLING
There
are more than 500 million used mobile phones in the US sitting on shelves or in landfills, and another 125 million will be
added to the shelves or landfills this year alone. The problem is growing at a rate of more than two million phones per week,
putting tons of toxic waste into landfills daily. This mountain of toxic waste poses a major threat to the environment, and
an equally large opportunity to re-channel these devices into productive reuse. Several sites such as TradeMyCell.com offer
to remedy to this situation by buying back and recycling cell phones from users.
[edit] Manufacturers Nokia Corporation is currently the world's largest manufacturer of mobile telephones, with a global device market share of approximately 36%
in Q1 of 2007. Other mobile phone manufacturers include
Apple Inc.,
Audiovox (now
UT Starcom),
Benefon,
BenQ-Siemens,
High Tech Computer Corporation (HTC),
Fujitsu,
Kyocera,
LG Mobile,
Mitsubishi,
Motorola,
NEC,
Neonode,
Panasonic (Matsushita Electric),
Pantech Curitel,
Philips,
Research In Motion,
Sagem,
Samsung,
Sanyo,
Sharp,
Siemens,
Sierra Wireless,
SK Teletech,
Sonim Technologies,
Sony Ericsson,
T&A Alcatel, and
Toshiba. There are also specialist communication systems related to (but distinct from) mobile phones.
The mobile phone manufacturers
can be grouped into two. The top five are available in practically all countries and comprise about 75% of all phones sold.
A second tier of small manufacturers exists with phones mostly sold only in specific regions or for niche markets. The top
five in order of market share are Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, SonyEricsson and LG.
SUBSCRIPTION This Railfone found on some
Amtrak trains uses cellular technology.
See also: List of mobile network operators Several countries, including the
UK, now have more mobile phones than people. There are over five hundred million active mobile phone accounts in China, as of
2007.
Luxembourg has the highest
mobile phone penetration rate in the world, at 164% in December 2001. In
Hong Kong the penetration rate reached 139.8% of the population in July 2007.The total number of mobile phone subscribers in the world
was estimated at 2.14 billion in 2005. The subscriber count reached 2.7 billion by end of 2006 according to Informa, and 3.3
billion by November, 2007, thus reaching an equivalent of over half the planet's population. Around 80% of the world's population
enjoys mobile phone coverage
as of 2006. This figure is expected to increase to 90% by the year 2010.
At present, Africa has the largest growth rate of cellular
subscribers in the world, its markets expanding nearly twice as fast as
Asian markets. The availability of
prepaid or
'pay-as-you-go' services, where the subscriber is not committed to a long term contract, has helped fuel this growth to a monumental scale
in Africa as well as in other continents.
On a numerical basis, India is the largest growth market, adding about 6
million cell phones every month. With 256.55 million cell phones, market penetration in the country is still low at 22.52%.
India expects to reach 500 million subscribers by end of 2010.
There are three major technical standards for the current
generation of mobile phones and networks, and two major standards for the next generation 3G phones and networks. All European,
African and many Asian countries have adopted a single system,
GSM, which is the only technology available on all continents and in most countries and covers over 74% of all subscribers on
mobile networks. In many countries, such as the
United States,
Australia,
Brazil,
India,
Japan, and
South Korea GSM co-exists with other internationally adopted standards such as
CDMA and TDMA, as well as national standards such as
iDEN in the USA and PDC in Japan. Over the past five years several dozen mobile operators (carriers) have abandoned networks on
TDMA and CDMA technologies, switching over to GSM.
With third generation (3G) networks, which are also known as IMT-2000
networks, about three out of four networks are on the
W-CDMA (also known as
UMTS) standard, usually seen as the natural evolution path for GSM and TDMA networks. One in four 3G networks is on the CDMA2000
1x EV-DO technology. Some analysts count a previous stage in CDMA evolution, CDMA2000 1x RTT, as a 3G technology whereas most
standardization experts count only CDMA2000 1x EV-DO as a true 3G technology. Because of this difference in interpreting what
is 3G, there is a wide variety in subscriber counts. As of June 2007, on the narrow definition there are 200 million subscribers
on 3G networks. By using the more broad definition, the total subscriber count of 3G phone users is 475 million.
While
some systems of payment are
'pay-as-you-go' where conversation time is purchased and added to a phone unit via an Internet account or in shops or ATMs, other systems
are more traditional ones where bills are paid by regular intervals. Pay as you go (also known as "pre-pay") accounts were
invented simultaneously in Portugal and Italy and today form more than half of all mobile phone subscriptions. USA, Canada,
Japan and Finland are among the rare countries left where most phones are still contract-based.
Culture
and customs In less than twenty years, the mobile telephone has gone from being rare, expensive
equipment of the business elite to a pervasive, low-cost personal item. In many countries, mobile telephones outnumber land-line
telephones; in the U.S., 50 percent of children have mobile telephones. In many
young adults' households it has supplanted the land-line telephone. The mobile phone is banned in some countries, such as
North Korea.
Given the high levels of societal mobile telephone service penetration, it is a key means for people to communicate
with each other. The
SMS feature spawned the "
texting" sub-culture.
[citation needed] In December 1993, the first person-to-person SMS text message was transmitted in Finland. Currently, texting
is the most widely-used data service; 1.8 billion users generated $80 billion of revenue in 2006 (source ITU).
Many
telephones offer
Instant Messenger services for simple, easy texting. Mobile phones have Internet service (e.g.
NTT DoCoMo's
i-mode), offering text messaging via e-mail in Japan, South Korea, China, and India. In Europe, 30–40 per cent of internet
access is via mobile telephone. Most mobile internet access is much different from computer access, featuring alerts, weather
data, e-mail, search engines, instant messages, and game and music downloading; most mobile internet access is hurried and
short.
The mobile telephone can be a
fashion totem custom-decorated to reflect the owner's personality. This aspect of the mobile telephony business is, in itself, an industry,
e.g.
ringtone sales exceeded $5 billion in 2006, per Informa.
Etiquette The use of a mobile phone is prohibited in some train company carriages Mobile telephone use in etiquette is an important
matter of social discourtesy, phones ringing during funerals, weddings, in toilets, cinemas, and plays. Users often speak
loudly, leading to
book shops,
libraries,
bathrooms,
cinemas, doctors' offices, and
houses of worship prohibiting their uses, and, in some places, the installation of
signal-jamming equipment to prevent their use (though in many countries, including the U.S., such equipment is currently illegal). Some new buildings,
such as auditoriums, have installed wire mesh in the walls (making it a
Faraday cage), which prevents signal penetration without violating signal jamming laws.
Trains, particularly those involving long-distance
services, often offer a "quiet car" where phone use is prohibited, much like the designated non-smoking car in the past. However
many users tend to ignore this as it is rarely enforced, especially if the other cars are crowded and they have no choice
but to go in the "quiet car".
Mobile phone use on aircraft is also prohibited and many airlines claim in their in-plane announcements that this prohibition is due to possible interference
with aircraft radio communications. Shut-off mobile phones do not interfere with aircraft avionics. The concern about cell
phones is partially based on the crash of
Crossair Flight 498.
As of 2007, several airlines are experimenting with base station and antenna systems installed to the airplane, allowing
low power, short-range connection of any phones aboard to remain connected to the aircraft's base station.Thus, they would
not attempt connection to the ground base stations as during take off and landing. Simultaneously, airlines may offer phone
services to their traveling passengers either as full voice and data services, or initially only as SMS text messaging and
similar services. Qantas, the Australian airline, is the first airline to run a test airplane in this configuration in the
Autumn of 2007.
Emirates has announced plans to allow limited mobile phone usage on some flights.
In any case, there are inconsistencies between
practices allowed by different airlines and even on the same airline in different countries. For example,
Northwest Airlines may allow the use of mobile phones immediately after landing on a domestic flight within the US, whereas they may state "not
until the doors are open" on an international flight arriving in the Netherlands. In April 2007 the US
Federal Communications Commission officially grounded the idea of allowing passengers to use phones during a flight.
In a similar vein, signs are put up
in UK
petrol stations prohibiting the use of mobile phones, due to possible safety issues. Most schools in the United States have prohibited mobile
phones in the classroom, due to the large number of class disruptions that result from their use, the potential for cheating
via text messaging, and the possibility of photographing someone without consent.In the UK, possession of a mobile phone in
an examination can result in immediate disqualification from that subject or from all that student's subjects.
A working
group, made up of Finnish telephone companies, public transport operators and communications authorities, have launched a
campaign to remind mobile phone users of courtesy, especially when using mass transit – what to talk about on the phone,
and how to. In particular, the campaign wants to impact loud mobile phone usage as well as calls regarding sensitive matters.
Use in disaster response The Finnish government decided in 2005 that the fastest way to warn citizens
of disasters was the mobile phone network. In Japan, mobile phone companies provide immediate notification of
earthquakes and other
natural disasters to their customers free of charge. In the event of an emergency,
disaster response crews can locate trapped or injured people using the signals from their mobile phones. An interactive menu accessible through
the phone's
Internet browser notifies the company if the user is safe or in distress.
[citation needed] In Finland rescue services suggest hikers carry mobile phones in case of emergency even when deep in the forests
beyond
cellular coverage, as the radio signal of a cellphone attempting to connect to a base station can be detected by overflying rescue aircraft
with special detection gear. Also, users in the United States can sign up through their provider for free text messages when
an
AMBER Alert goes out for a missing person in their area.
However, most mobile telephone networks operate close to capacity during
normal times and spikes in call volumes caused by widespread emergencies often overload the system just when it is needed
the most. Examples reported in the media where this have occurred include the attacks of 9/11/2001, the Hawaian earthquake,
the 2003 Northeast blackouts, Hurricane Katrina, and the 2007 Minnesota bridge collapse. Thus mobile phones are better for
isolated emergencies such as vehicle accidents.
Use by drivers
One phone in each hand
Main article: Mobile phones and driving safety Mobile-phone use while
driving is common but controversial. While few jurisdictions have banned motorists from using mobile phones while driving outright,
some have banned or restricted drivers from using
hand-held mobile phones while exempting phones operated in a
hands-free
fashion. Using a hand-held mobile phone while driving is an impediment to vehicle operation that can increase the risk of
road traffic accidents. However, some studies have found similarly elevated accident rates among drivers using
hands-free phones, suggesting that the distraction of a
telephone conversation itself is a significant safety problem. A study
done by the
Transport Research Laboratory found that mobile phone users were four times more likely to be in a collision, regardless of whether the call was hands-free
or not.
[21] This problem does not apply to conversations with a
passenger, as passengers can regulate the flow of conversation
according to the perceived level of danger, and also provides a second pair of eyes to spot hazards.
Applications Mobile news services are expanding with many organizations providing "on-demand" news services by SMS. Some also provide "instant" news
pushed out by SMS. Mobile telephony also facilitates
activism and public journalism being explored by
Reuters and
Yahoo and small independent news companies such as
Jasmine News in Sri Lanka. Companies like
Monster are starting to offer mobile services such as job search and career advice. Consumer applications are on the rise and include
everything from information guides on local activities and events to mobile coupons and discount offers one can use to save
money on purchases. Even tools for creating websites for mobile phones are increasingly becoming available, e.g.
Mobilemo.
The total value of mobile data services exceeds the value of paid services on the internet, and was worth 31 billion
dollars in 2006 (source Informa). The largest categories of mobile services are music, picture downloads, videogaming, adult
entertainment, gambling, video/TV.
POWER MOBILE PHONESPower
Mobile phones generally obtain power from
batteries which can be recharged from
mains power, a
USB port or a
cigarette lighter socket in a
car. Formerly, the most common form of cell 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.
Cell phone manufacturers have been experimenting with alternate power sources, including
solar cells.
MOBILE PHONE FEATURES There are significant
questions as to who first invented the camera phone, as numerous other people received patents filed in the early 1990s for
the device, including David M. Britz of AT&T Research in March of 1994 and
Phillipe Kahn, who claims to have first invented it in 1997. The
camera phone now holds 85% of the mobile phone market. Mobile phones often have features beyond sending text messages and making voice
calls, including Internet browsing, music (
MP3) playback, memo recording, personal organizer functions,
e-mail, instant messaging, built-in cameras and camcorders,
ringtones, games, radio,
Push-to-Talk (PTT),
infrared and
Bluetooth connectivity, call registers, ability to watch streaming video or download video for later viewing, video calling and serve as a
wireless modem for a PC, and soon will also serve as a console of sorts to online games and other high quality games (e.g. Final Fantasy
Agito).
Tariff models When cellular telecoms services
were launched, phones and calls were very expensive and early mobile operators (carriers) decided to charge for all air time
consumed by the mobile phone user. This resulted in the concept of charging callers for outbound calls and also for receiving
calls. As mobile phone call charges diminished and phone adoption rates skyrocketed, more modern operators decided not to
charge for incoming calls. Thus some markets have "Receiving Party Pays" models (or, more correctly,
"Mobile Party Pays"),
in which both outbound and received calls are charged, and other markets have "Calling Party Pays" models, by which only making
calls produces costs, and receiving calls is free. An exception to this are
international roaming tariffs, by which receiving calls are normally also charged.
The European market adopted a "Calling Party Pays" model throughout
the GSM environment and soon various other GSM markets also started to emulate this model. As Receiving Party Pays systems
have the undesired effect of phone owners keeping their phones turned off to avoid receiving unwanted calls, the total voice
usage rates (and profits) in Calling Party Pays countries outperform those in Receiving Party Pays countries. Consequently,
most countries previously with Receiving Party Pays models have either abandoned them or employed alternative marketing methods,
such as massive voice call buckets, to avoid the problem of phone users keeping phones turned off.
In most countries
today, including
Syria,
European Union nations,
United Arab Emirates,
Kazakhstan,
Turkey,
New Zealand,
Korea,
Japan,
Pakistan,
Australia,
Brazil,
Chile,
Colombia,
India,
Maldives,
Malaysia,
Peru,
South Africa,
Israel,
Lebanon,
Egypt and
Jordan the person receiving a mobile phone call pays nothing. However, in
Hong Kong,
Canada, and the
United States, one can be charged per minute. In the United States, a few carriers are beginning to offer unlimited received phone calls.
For the
Chinese mainland, it was reported that both of its two operators will adopt the caller-pays approach as early as January 2007.
Developing countries In some
developing countries with little telephone
infrastructure, the mobile telephone is the telephony giving poor people access to medical and legal services. Cell phone use in developing
countries has quadrupled in the last decade. The rise of cell phone technology in developing countries is often cited as an
example of the
leapfrog effect. In many remote regions in the third world went literally from having no telecommunications infrastructure to having satellite
based communications systems.
[edit] Forensics and evidence Law enforcement globally rely heavily upon mobile telephone
evidence, to the extent that in the EU the "communications of every mobile telephone user are recorded". The concerns over
terrorism and terrorist use of technology prompted an inquiry by the
British House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee into the use of evidence from mobile telephone devices, prompting leading mobile telephone forensic specialists to identify
forensic techniques available in this area. NIST have published guidelines and procedures for the preservation, acquisition,
examination, analysis, and reporting of digital information present on cell phones can be found under the NIST Publication
SP800-101.
An example of criminal investigations using mobile phones is the initial location and ultimate identification
of the terrorists of the
2004 Madrid train bombings. In the attacks, mobile phones had been used to detonate the bombs. However, one of the bombs failed to detonate, and the
SIM card in the corresponding mobile phone gave the first serious lead about the terrorists to investigators. By tracking the
whereabouts of the SIM card and correlating other mobile phones that had been registered in those areas, police were able
to locate the terrorists.
Human health impacts Since
the introduction of mobile phones, concerns have been raised about the potential health impacts from regular use. As mobile
phone penetrations grew past fixed landline penetration levels in 1998 in Finland and from 1999 in Sweden, Denmark and Norway,
the Scandinavian health authorities have run continuous long term studies of effects of mobile phone radiation effects to
humans, and in particular children. Numerous studies have reported and most studies consistently report no significant relationship
between mobile phone use and health. Studies from the Institute of Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute and researchers
at the Danish Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Copenhagen for example showed no link between mobile phone use and cancer.
The Danish study only covered analog mobile phone usage up through 1995, and subjects who started mobile phone usage after
1995 were counted as non-users in the study. The health concerns have grown as mobile phone penetration rates throughout Europe
reached 80%–90% levels earlier in this decade and prolonged exposure studies have been carried out in almost all European
countries again most reporting no effect, and the most alarming studies only reporting a possible effect. However, a study
by the
International Agency for Research on Cancer of 4,500 users found a statistically significant link between tumor frequency and mobile phone use.
One study that reviewed
the link between cellphones and sperm quality found that heavy mobile phone users (>4 hours per day) had significantly
less viable sperm (
WHO morphology score was less than half of the lower time cell phone users).
[35] A prospective study of 13 normal men found that significantly increasing their cell phone use (>6 hours each day for 5
days) caused a marked reduction of sperm quality.
This is considered to be a thermal effect, since the testes are vulnerable
to heating by RF energy because of poor circulation and heat is known to have adverse effects on male fertility. The eyes
are the other part of the body known to be poor at dissipating heat. Experiments have shown that short duration exposure to
very high levels of RF radiation can cause cataracts in rabbits. The non-thermal effects of RF radiation are an area
of active study.
In 2007, it was reported that a mobile phone battery exploded killing a man in Korea, but it was later
discovered to be a lie.
Environmental impacts Like
all high structures, cellular antenna masts pose a hazard to low flying
aircraft. Towers over a certain height or towers that are close to
airports or
heliports are normally required to have warning lights. There have been reports that warning lights on cellular masts, TV-towers and
other high structures can attract and confuse
birds.
US authorities estimate that millions of birds are killed near communication towers in the country each year.
An example
of the way mobile phones and mobile networks have sometimes been perceived as a threat is the widely reported and later discredited
claim that mobile phone masts are associated with the
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) which has reduced bee hive numbers by up to 75% in many areas, especially near cities in the US. The Independent newspaper
cited a scientific study claiming it provided evidence for the theory that mobile phone masts are a major cause in the collapse
of bee populations, with controlled experiments demonstrating a rapid and catastrophic effect on individual hives near masts.
Mobile phones were in fact not covered in the study, and the original researchers have since emphatically disavowed any connection
between their research, mobile phones, and CCD, specifically indicating that the Independent article had misinterpreted their
results and created "a horror story". While the initial claim of damage to bees was widely reported, the corrections to the
story were almost non-existent in the media.
Technology Mobile phone tower
Cell Phone tower located in
Lynnwood, WA. Mobile phones and the network they operate under vary significantly from provider to provider, and country to country. However,
all of them communicate through electromagnetic
radio waves with a cell site base station, the
antennas of which are usually mounted on a tower, pole or building.
The phones have a low-power
transceiver that transmits voice and data to the nearest cell sites, usually not more than 8 to 13 km (approximately 5 to 8 miles) away.
When the mobile phone or data device is turned on, it registers with the
mobile telephone exchange, or switch, with its unique identifiers, and will then be alerted by the mobile switch when there is an incoming telephone
call. The handset constantly listens for the strongest signal being received from the surrounding base stations. As the user
moves around the network, the mobile device will "
handoff" to various cell sites during calls, or while waiting (idle) between calls it will
reselect cell sites.
Cell sites have relatively low-power (often only one or two watts) radio transmitters which broadcast their presence and relay communications
between the mobile handsets and the switch. The switch in turn connects the call to another subscriber of the same
wireless service provider or to the
public telephone network, which includes the networks of other wireless carriers. Many of these sites are camouflaged to blend with existing environments,
particularly in scenic areas.
The dialogue between the handset and the cell site is a stream of digital data that includes
digitized audio (except for the first generation analog networks). The technology that achieves this depends on the system
which the
mobile phone operator has adopted. The technologies are grouped by generation. The first-generation systems started in 1979 with Japan, are all
analog and include AMPS and NMT. Second-generation systems, started in 1991 in Finland, are all digital and include GSM, CDMA
and TDMA. Third-generation networks, which are still being deployed, started with Japan in 2001, are all digital, and offer
high-speed data access in addition to voice services and include
W-CDMA (known also as
UMTS), and CDMA2000 EV-DO. China will launch a third 3G technlogy on the TD-SCDMA standard. Each network operator has a unique
radio frequency band.
Books about mobile communication Since 2002, many books have been written
on the social impact of mobile phones:
Agar, Jon,
Constant Touch: A Global History of the Mobile Phone, 2004
ISBN 1840465417 Ahonen, Tomi,
m-Profits: Making Money with 3G Services, 2002,
ISBN 0-470-84775-1 Ahonen, Kasper and Melkko,
3G Marketing 2004,
ISBN 0-470-85100-7 Glotz, Peter & Bertsch, Stefan, eds.
Thumb Culture: The Meaning of Mobile Phones for Society, 2005 Katz, James
E. & Aakhus, Mark, eds.
Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance, 2002 Kavoori,
Anandam & Arceneaux, Noah, eds.
The Cell Phone Reader: Essays in Social Transformation, 2006
Levinson, Paul,
Cellphone: The Story of the World's Most Mobile Medium, and How It Has Transformed Everything!, 2004
ISBN 1-4039-6041-0 Ling, Rich,
The Mobile Connection: the Cell Phone's Impact on Society, 2004
ISBN 1558609369 Ling, Rich and Pedersen, Per, eds.
Mobile Communications: Re-negotiation of the Social Sphere, 2005
ISBN 1852339314 Nyíri, Kristóf, ed.
Mobile Communication: Essays on Cognition and Community, 2003 Nyíri, Kristóf, ed.
Mobile
Learning: Essays on Philosophy, Psychology and Education, 2003 Nyíri, Kristóf, ed.
Mobile Democracy: Essays on Society,
Self and Politics, 2003 Nyíri, Kristóf, ed.
A Sense of Place: The Global and the Local in Mobile Communication,
2005 Nyíri, Kristóf, ed.
Mobile Understanding: The Epistemology of Ubiquitous Communication, 2006
Plant, Dr. Sadie,
on the mobile – the effects of mobile telephones on social and individual life, 2001
Rheingold, Howard,
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, 2002
ISBN 0738208612 Terminology Related
non-mobile-phone systems :
Cordless telephone (portable phone) Cordless phones are standard telephones with radio handsets. Unlike mobile phones, cordless phones
use private base stations that are not shared between subscribers. The base station is connected to a land-line. Increasingly,
with
wireless local loop technologies, namely
DECT, the distinction is blurred.
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. Also, 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. Satellite phones are often used in remote areas where no mobile phone coverage
exists and at sea
