The transition to cellular mobile telephony

In the meantime, the first cellular mobile systems had been introduced in the Tokyo area of Japan in 1979, in Sweden in 1981 and in Finland in 1982. All Nordic countries used the same standard, the NMT system (Nordic Mobile Telephony) while in Japan a national standard was developed. In contrast to Japan, where no pre-cellular service had been available for private users before that time (Pemple 1978), pre-cellular mobile service was already a big market success in Sweden and Finland. The Japanese system commenced service within metropolitan ar-eas o while in the Nordic countries rural areas were included early in the coverage. 

Other countries followed in the mid-1980s. In the UK, two operators were given mobile licenses and operated a mobile network from early 1985 and 1987 respectively. A committee specified a variant of the AMPS system, called TAGS (Total access cellular system), adapted to the special conditions in the UK, (Garrett 1984, Scheele 1992, p. 74). In Germany, the first cellular net, the C-450 developed by Siemens, was commercially launched at the end of 1985. Like their predecessors. 

In 1985 about three quarters of the subscribers lived in the metropolitan Tokyo area, 25 % of the inhabitable area was covered (Lee 1989, p. 29). 

Digital cellular systems and the emergence of the mobile mass-market 

Estimates for the GSM standard are difficult to achieve, but telecom operators in countries such as Germany, Sweden and France are estimated to have spent about 150 million each for the standard specification phase only, see e.g. Pach (1994, p. 88), Hulten, Molleryd (1995). 

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