Fifty years with mobile phones From novelty to no. 1 consumer product

摘要

This year marks fifty years since Ericsson introduced the world's first automatic mobile telephone system for a few hundred subscribers in Stockholm and Goeteborg (Gothenburg), Sweden. The associated mobile units were colossal 40kg blocks of radio equipment designed for installation in the baggage compartment of a car. The extraordinary success of mobile communications, from those early pioneering efforts to today's miniature telephones and advanced services - the result of global technical labors of the highest art - reads like a page from a storybook. From the outset, Ericsson has been a major player, driving many facets of development and helping to create the standards that prevail in the industry today. The expertise Ericsson gained from its first systems, and a steady ambition to create an optimum, automatic network, laid the groundwork for a vision that has stood the test of time. Ericsson continues to forge ahead as a technical leader in the field of mobile communications - perhaps more so now than ever before thanks to high-speed packet access (HSPA), the turbo version of the 3G network.