The history of mobile telephony

Before I elaborate on the lead market factors that were responsible for the successful international diffusion, I shall briefly review the history of mobile telephony. Three distinct periods in which the usage of mobile communication fundamentally changed can be identified the period of pre-cellular telephony, of analog cellular and of digital cellular mobile telephony. 

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In the history of mobile telephony the scarcity of spectrum is a supply-restricting factor curbing large demand. The low capacity of pre-cellular mobile telephony systems was due to the scarcity of spectrum capacity. Since the spectrum is used by ships, aeroplanes to communicate with base stations, and to a great extent for military purposes as well as for radio and television transmission, only a small frequency band can be made available for private mobile communication. As a result only few could use the frequency spectrum available. Technical improvements such as bandwidth reduction and truncation focussed on increasing frequency efficiency. But the slow development of wireless telephony (Levintlial 1998, p. 237) was often interpreted as a symbol that mobile telephony could never become a mass communication medium and will ever be refined to niche markets and special users. 

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