Did you know that the first Canadian wireless network was launched on Canada Day in 1985 by Bell Cellular and Cantel. The first Canadian to buy a cell phone was Victor Surerus in Peterborough, Ontario and he paid $2,000 for what was known as a "bag phone".
Today cell phones are much smaller - in fact they are more like tiny, personal computers that fit in your pocket. They have become all-purpose machines with countless features that make communication easier and more efficient. It is almost easy to forget that their main purpose is as a mobile telephone.
Wireless technology has been around for longer than most people realize. People have been experimenting with the idea of 'wireless' as early as the 1880’s. Nikola Tesla was particularly interested in wireless energy but he also experimented with wireless telegraphy and even sent wireless transmissions.
But it was a Canadian who had a large role to play in the development of wireless communication. Reginald Fessenden was the first to achieve two-way voice and music communication over radio on Christmas Eve, 1906, by playing “O Holy Night” on the violin and reading from the Bible.
0G and 1G: Dawn of Wireless Technology
The concept of cellular technology was proposed as early as 1947 by Douglas H. Ring and W. Rae Young.
From this point on an arms race unfolded to be the first to produce the proper technology - with the winner being Martin Cooper of Motorola. Cooper, credited as “inventor of the cell phone”, placed the first cell phone call in 1973 on the crowded streets of New York City to members of the media. He called Joel S. Engel - his directly competitor at Bell Labs. This cheeky bit of gamesmanship was a glimpse of what would follow in the decades to come - cell phone makers love being the first to develop new technology and the bragging rights that come with it.
Cooper’s phone had a reported weight of 1.5kg and was worth approximately $9,970.00 when taking inflation in to account. His design would be improved upon for over a decade until the release of the Motorola DynaTAC in 1984. The first generation (1G) cell phones were released from 1984 to the early 90’s, and ran on an analog cellular network. Although the DynaTAC was the first real accessible cell phone and was the start of 1G, it was targeted towards the upper-class. The actual phone itself was quite expensive and would require a monthly cost of $60-100 to operate.
It was also a status symbol, as having one was the “cool” thing at the time- making appearances in the hands of characters like Zack Morris (Saved By The Bell) and Gordon Gecko (Wall Street). These large, bulky phones weighed about 0.8kg, and though they look comical now, they were stylish for the time. The latter is an early example of the relationship between the cell phone and its growing necessity in business.
Though they worked decently well they were unsecure and susceptible to “cloning” - the act of stealing one cell phone’s individual identifier to use on another phone for free. As the technology developed they became more secure. Although, cloning is still possible today's cell phones come with a SIM card which makes it much harder to do.
2G: The Cell Phone Boom
The second generation (2G) of cell phone systems used digital cellular networks. This technology allowed for advancements and a new focus on user-friendliness leading to a massive boom in the cell-phone market. In 1993, Bellsouth and IBM teamed up to introduce “Simon” to the market. Perhaps it can be called the first “smart phone” because it is advanced beyond the phones of the age. It was the first indication that a cell phone can be more than just a phone - it was equipped with a pager, email, stylus, full QWERTY keypad, and a calendar. However, it was far from the most user-friendly device, being 0.5kg and difficult to use.
As the second generation progressed, the focus was on making cell phones user-friendly and attractive to a broad consumer base. The phones kept getting smaller and more compact to easily fit in a person’s pocket. They started being developed in sleek, stylish designs with a multitude of colours to appeal to young people. As the cost of producing them fell, the prices did as well making them more affordable for the general public. The Nokia 3310 was released in 2000 with a design to appeal to common users and the marketing to appeal to a younger audience. It sold 126 million units.
The cell phone boom was officially on. Cell phones came in all sorts of shapes and sizes - flip phones, coloured screens, full keypads - there was a design for everybody and everybody had one. They weren’t just status symbols reserved for wealthy businesspeople anymore; they were mainstream. The innovations started coming faster and almost annually.
Some examples include:
A low-quality camera was part of the Nokia 7650 and Sanyo SPC-5300
The Motorola RAZR made phones smaller and thinner than ever
Colour, vibrant clearer displays, games
Blue-tooth and music sharing was available in many models
The Blackberry 6230 debuted in 2003 with a sleek, small model with a full QWERTY keyboard making it easy to write e-mails on the go. It became an essential business commodity and the Blackberry brand became a massive hit amongst businesses. Businesses started to supply all their employees with a Blackberry because it made business more efficient.
3G and 4G: All-Purpose Devices
In 2007, Apple announced the iPhone and jumpstarted the 3rd Generation (3G). The biggest revolution was broadband data and the ability to connect to the internet from practically anywhere. This offered limitless opportunities. Apple, already known for the intuitiveness of their designs created an advanced cell phone with a user-friendly, simple design forgoing the use of multiple buttons for a touch screen and easy controls. The addition of “apps” gave a level of customization and creativity that had never been possible in previous phone generations. The original iPhone was a massive success and changed the expectations for phones. Gone were the days of a person’s phone being primarily used for calling (or texting) - the iPhone popularized the cell phone as an all-purpose device.
It has also helped to influence the 24-hour business cycle - everybody is connected all the time, so ideas, work, and communication isn’t just limited to the traditional workday. Business has gone mobile.
5G - A New Global Wireless Standard
5G enables a new kind of network that is designed to connect virtually everyone and everything together including machines, objects, and devices.
5G wireless technology is meant to deliver higher multi-Gbps peak data speeds, ultra low latency, more reliability, massive network capacity, increased availability, and a more uniform user experience to more users. Higher performance and improved efficiency empower new user experiences and connects new industries.
5G is based on OFDM (Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing), a method of modulating a digital signal across several different channels to reduce interference. 5G uses 5G NR air interface alongside OFDM principles. 5G also uses wider bandwidth technologies such as sub-6 GHz and mmWave.
Like 4G LTE, 5G OFDM operates based on the same mobile networking principles. However, the new 5G NR air interface can further enhance OFDM to deliver a much higher degree of flexibility and scalability. This could provide more 5G access to more people and things for a variety of different use cases.
5G will bring wider bandwidths by expanding the usage of spectrum resources, from sub-3 GHz used in 4G to 100 GHz and beyond. 5G can operate in both lower bands (e.g., sub-6 GHz) as well as mmWave (e.g., 24 GHz and up), which will bring extreme capacity, multi-Gbps throughput, and low latency.
5G is designed to not only deliver faster, better mobile broadband services compared to 4G LTE, but can also expand into new service areas such as mission-critical communications and connecting the massive IoT. This is enabled by many new 5G NR air interface design techniques, such as a new self-contained TDD subframe design.