Usage By civilians:
This Railfone found on some Amtrak trains in North America uses cellular technology.See also: List of mobile network operators
An increasing number of countries, particularly in Europe, now have more mobile phones than people. According to the figures from Eurostat,
the European Union's in-house statistical office, Luxembourg had the highest mobile phone penetration rate at 158 mobile subscriptions per 100
people (158%), closely followed by Lithuania and Italy. In Hong Kong the penetration rate reached 139.8% of the population in July 2007.
Over 50 countries have mobile phone subscription penetration rates higher than that of the population and the Western European average penetration
rate was 110% in 2007 (source Informa 2007). The U.S. currently has one of the lowest rates of mobile phone penetrations in the industrialized
world at 85%.
There are over five hundred million active mobile phone accounts in China, as of 2007, but the total penetration rate there still stands below
50%. The total number of mobile phone subscribers in the world was estimated at 2.14 billion in 2005. Some reports indicate that 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 has access to mobile phone coverage, as of 2006. This figure is expected to increase to 90% by
the year 2010.
In some developing countries with little "landline" telephone infrastructure, mobile phone use has quadrupled in the last decade. The rise of mobile
phone technology in developing countries is often cited as an example of the leapfrog effect. Many remote regions in the third world went from
having no telecommunications infrastructure to having satellite based communications systems. 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 in Africa as well as in other continents.
On a numerical basis, India is the largest growth market, adding about 6 million mobile phones every month. With 256.55 million mobile 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, Canada, Costa Rica, India, and South Korea and Vietnam 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.
Usage Culture and customs:
Between the 1980s and the 2000s, the mobile phone has gone from being an expensive item used by the business elite to a pervasive, personal
communications tool for the general population to where specific styles of phones are often seen as a regular fashion statements (much to the lament
of some). In most countries, mobile phones outnumber land-line phones, with fixed landlines numbering 1.3 Billion but mobile subscriptions 3.3 Billion
at the end of 2007.
In many markets from Japan and South Korea, to Scandinavia, to Israel, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong, most children age 8-9 have mobile phones and
the new accounts are now opened for customers aged 6 and 7. Where mostly parents tend to give hand-me-down used phones to their youngest children, in
Japan already new cameraphones are on the market whose target age group is under 10 years of age, introduced by KDDI in February 2007. The USA also
lags on this measure, as in the US so far, about half of all children have mobile phones.[15] In many young adults' households it has supplanted the
land-line phone. Mobile phone usage is banned in some countries, such as North Korea and restricted in some other countries such as Burma.
Given the high levels of societal mobile phone service penetration, it is a key means for people to communicate with each other. The SMS feature
spawned the "texting" sub-culture amongst younger users. 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 phones 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. 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 phone 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 amounted to $3.5 billion in 2005.
The use of a mobile phone is prohibited in some train company carriagesMobile phone use can be an important matter of social discourtesy: phones
ringing during funerals or weddings; in toilets, cinemas and theatres. Some book shops, libraries, bathrooms, cinemas, doctors' offices and places
of worship prohibit their use, so that other patrons will not be disturbed by conversations. Some facilities install signal-jamming equipment to
prevent their use, although in many countries, including the US, such equipment is illegal. Some new auditoriums have installed wire mesh in the
walls to make a Faraday cage, which prevents signal penetration without violating signal jamming laws.
Trains, particularly those involving long-distance services, often offer a "quiet carriage" where phone use is prohibited, much like the designated
non-smoking carriage of the past. In the UK however many users tend to ignore this as it is rarely enforced, especially if the other carriages are
crowded and they have no choice but to go in the "quiet carriage".[citation needed] In Japan, it is generally considered impolite to talk using a
phone on any train -- texting is generally the mode of mobile communication. Mobile phone usage on local public transport is also increasingly seen
as a nuisance; the city of Graz, for instance, has mandated a total ban of mobile phones on its tram and bus network in 2008 (though texting is still
allowed).
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 is partially based on
the crash of Crossair Flight 498.
Usage By government agencies and Law enforcement:
Law enforcement have used mobile phone evidence in a number of different ways. In the EU the "communications of every mobile telephone user are
recorded". In other countries, evidence about the physical location of an individual at a given time has been introduced by triangulating
the individual's cellphone between several cellphone towers. This triangulation technique can be used to show that an individual's cellphone
was at a certain location at a certain time. 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 phone 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 mobile phones can be found under the NIST Publication SP800-101.
In the UK in 2000 it was claimed that recordings of mobile phone conversations made on the day of the Omagh bombing were crucial to the police
investigation. In particular, calls made on two mobile phones which were tracked from south of the Irish border to Omagh and back on the day of the
bombing, were considered of vital importance.
Further 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.
Cell Phone Usage 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 phone 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 September 11, 2001 attacks,
the Hawaiian earthquake, the 2003 Northeast blackouts, the 2005 London Tube bombings, Hurricane Katrina, and the 2007 Minnesota bridge collapse.
Thus mobile phones are better for isolated emergencies such as vehicle accidents.
Under FCC regulations, all mobile telephones must be capable of dialing emergency services, regardless of the presence of a SIM card or the payment
status of the account.
Mobile (Cell) Phones
Mobile phone features
Cell Phone Usage
Cell Phone Business Models
History of Cell Phones
History of the Telephone
History of the Telephone Controversy Debate and Patents
Source References:
- Total mobile subscribers top 1.8 billion".
- Up to 90 percent of globe to have mobile coverage
- Cell phone use booming worldwide" (September 15, 2007).
- Mobile growth fastest in Africa",
- Phone revolution makes Africa upwardly mobile", The Times
- The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
- Mobile Phones for Kids Under 15: a Responsible Question
- Rise in executions for mobile use", ITV News (June 15, 2007).
- PC World - Cell Phone Fashion Show
- Gundersen, Edna, "Mastertones ring up profits", USA Today, 11/29/2006
- "In Grazer "Öffis" sind Handys ab heute verboten" (in German), Klagenfurt: Styria Medien AG, p. 18.
- "Rücksichtsvoll" oder "völlig sinnlos"" (in German), Der Standard Online vesion, p. 18.
- ICT Security & Dependability Research beyond 2010: Final strategy
- Supplementary memorandum submitted by Gregory Smith
- Guidelines on Cell Phone Forensics
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/965274.stm Mobile phones key to Omagh probe]
- Communication safety
- New Japanese phones offer Earthquake early warning alerts".
- Wikipedia.org, the free encyclopedia
