Mobile phone

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(Redirected from Cellphone)
Image:Cell phones.jpg

A mobile phone, also known as a cellular phone, cellphone, mobile, or handphone, is a portable electronic device which behaves as a normal telephone whilst being able to move over a wide area (compare cordless phone which acts as a telephone only within a limited range). Mobile phones allow connections to be made to the telephone network, normally by directly dialing the other party's number on an inbuilt keypad. Most current mobile phones use a combination of radio wave transmission and conventional telephone circuit switching, though packet switching is already in use for some parts of the mobile phone network, especially for services such as Internet access and WAP.

Some of the world's largest mobile phone manufacturers include Alcatel, Audiovox, Kyocera (formerly the handset division of Qualcomm), LG, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic (Matsushita Electric), Philips, Sagem, Samsung, Sanyo, Siemens, SK Teletech, and Sony Ericsson.

There are also specialist communication systems related to, but distinct from mobile phones, such as satellite phones and Professional Mobile Radio.

Contents

Worldwide deployment

Radio phones have a long and varied history that stretches back to the 1950s, with hand-held cellular radio devices being available since 1983. Due to their low establishment costs and rapid deployment, mobile phone networks have since spread rapidly throughout the world, outstripping the growth of fixed telephony.

In most of Europe, wealthier parts of Asia, Australia, and the US, mobile phones are now widely used, with the majority of the adult, teenage, and even child population owning one. The number of cellphone subscribers in the US has reached over 190 million. The availability of Prepaid or pay as you go services, where the subscriber does not have to commit to a long term contract, has helped fuel this growth.

The mobile phone has become ubiquitous because of the interoperability of mobile phones across different networks and countries. This is due to the equipment manufacturers all working to the same standard, particularly the GSM standard which was designed for Europe-wide interoperability. All European nations and some Asian nations chose it as their sole standard, while in Japan and South Korea another standard, CDMA, was selected.

Mobile phone culture

Image:SMS-mobile.jpg In less than twenty years, mobile phones have gone from being rare and expensive pieces of equipment used by businesses to a pervasive low-cost personal item. In many countries, mobile phones now outnumber land-line telephones, with most adults and many children now owning mobile phones. It is not uncommon for young adults to simply own a mobile phone instead of a land-line for their residence. In some developing countries, where there is little existing fixed-line infrastructure, the mobile phone has become widespread.

With high levels of mobile telephone penetration, a mobile culture has evolved, where the phone becomes a key social tool, and people rely on their mobile phone addressbook to keep in touch with their friends. Many people keep in touch using SMS, and a whole culture of "texting" has developed from this. The commercial market in SMS's is growing. Many phones even offer Instant Messenger services to increase the simplicity and ease of texting on phones.

The mobile phone itself has also become a totemic and fashion object, with users decorating, customizing, and accessorizing their mobile phones to reflect their personality. Likewise, customized ringtones have been developed.

Mobile phone etiquette has become an important issue with mobiles ringing at funerals, weddings, movies and plays. Users often speak at increased volume, with little regard for other people nearby. It has become common practice for places like bookshops, libraries, movie theatres, and houses of worship to post signs prohibiting the use of cell phones, sometimes even installing jamming equipment to prevent them. The US intercity passenger system Amtrak offers a "quiet car" where cellphone use is prohibited, much like the designated non-smoking cars in days of yore.

Cameraphones and videophones that can capture video and take photographs are increasingly being used to cover breaking news. Stories like the London Bombings, the Boxing Day Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina have been reported on by cameraphone users on news sites like NowPublic and photosharing sites like Flickr.

Mobile phone features

See main article: Mobile phone features

Mobile phones are often packed with features that offer users far more than just the capability to send text messages and make voice calls. These may include internet browsing, music (MP3) playback, personal organisers, email, watch/alarm, built-in cameras, ringtones, security measures (e.g. pin codes), SIM blocks, games, radio, Push to talk, infrared and bluetooth connectivity, and call registers.

Technology

Mobile phone
standards
0G
0.5G
1G
2G
2.5G
2.75G
3G
3.5G
3.75G
4G

Though mobile phones vary significantly from provider to provider, and even nation to nation (most noticeably in North America), all mobile phones must generally accomplish the same tasks regardless. Mobile phones must be connected to the system of land-line phones. Mobile phones must also be able to connect with each other just as easily, even if the two phones are not from the same mobile service provider. Consequently, all mobile phone systems are comprised of two components; the handset, and the tower. The handset is the portable device, refered to as the mobile phone, cellphone or a smartphone. The tower is a high-yield radio tower that the mobile phones direct their radio communications to in order to connect to the network of telecommunications. It could also be a network of satellites.

Handsets feature a low power transceiver that is typically designed to transmit voice and data, or analog audio only, up to a few kilometers under ideal situations to where the tower is located. The handset listens for an available tower. Once found, the handset informs that tower of its own unique identifier, and alerts the mobile phone network that it is ready and standing-by to receive telephone calls. It then periodically repeats this information to the tower, and seeks out new towers over the duration it is powered on.

Towers are large structures that feature a series of high power radio transmitters designed to broadcast their presence and availability, and relay communications to the mobile handsets. The tower features a much higher-powered radio transceiver array that allows it to provide a radio communications dialog with handsets dozens of kilometers away. The tower is connected to the landline telephone infrastructure by a high-capacity phone line, and may also be connected to a dedicated data line. The tower can then route calls between the mobile handsets it's serving, and telephone calls over the landline. Because the tower tracks and relays what mobile handsets it is servicing, it can inform the mobile network provider so that at any given time a call to a mobile phone can quickly be traced to the tower that is servicing that handset.

Most mobile phones dialog between the handset and the tower is comprised of a data stream of digitized audio. The technology driving this process can vary, and in nations with no standard or preference (such as the United States), many incompatible technologies exist. Not only do transmission standards potentially differ, but so do the radio frequencies. Some technologies include AMPS for analog, and TDMA, CDMA and GSM for digital communications. Though nations like the USA have generally avoided official standardization, most nations of the world have agreed upon the GSM data transmission protocol for cellphones, and a small range of possible frequencies that mobile phones may operate on. Phones are classified based on the technology they use and the features they have. See the table on the right for a comprehensive listing.

Controversy

Health controversy

See main article: Mobile phone radiation and health

As with many new technologies, concerns have arisen about the effects on health from using a mobile telephone. There is little scientific evidence for an increase in certain types of rare tumors in long-time, heavy users. More recently a pan-European study provided significant evidence of DNA damage under certain conditions. So far, however, the World Health Organization Task Force on EMF effects on health has no definitive conclusion on the veracity of these allegations. (see also Electromagnetic radiation hazard). It is generally thought, however, that RF is incapable of producing any more than heating effects, as it is considered non-ionizing radiation, in other words that it lacks the energy to disrupt molecular bonds such as occurs in genetic mutations.

Driving controversy

Another controversial but perhaps more lethal health concern is the correlation with automobile accidents. Several studies have shown that motorists have a much higher risk of collisions and losing control of the vehicle while talking on the mobile telephone simultaneously with driving, even when using "hands-free" systems.

Accidents involving a driver being distracted by talking on a mobile phone have begun to be prosecuted as negligence similar to driving while intoxicated. In some jurisdictions, such as Ireland, Japan, Brazil, Australia, the United Kingdom and France, as well as several states in the United States driving while using a mobile phone is illegal, though an exception is often made if the phone is equipped with a handsfree system.

Security concerns

Early mobile phones did not have much security designed in. Some problems with these models were "cloning", a variant of identity theft, and "scanning" whereby third parties in the local area could intercept and eaves drop in on calls. Analogue phones could also be listened to on some radio scanners.

Although more recent digital systems (such as GSM) have attempted to address these fundamental issues, security problems continue to persist. Vulnerabilities have been found in many current protocols that continue to allow the possibility of eavesdropping or cloning.

Future prospects

Image:3g-mobile.jpg

There is a great deal of active research and development into mobile phone technology that is currently underway. Some of the improvements that are being worked on are:

  • One difficulty in adapting mobile phones to new uses is form factor. For example, ebooks may well become a distinct device, because of conflicting form-factor requirements — ebooks require large screens, while phones need to be smaller. However, this may be solved using folding e-paper or built-in projectors.
  • One function that would be useful in phones is a translation function. Currently it is only available in stand-alone devices, such as Ectaco translators.
  • An important area of evolution relates to the Man Machine Interface. New solutions are being developed to create new MMI more easily and let manufacturers and operators experiment new concepts. Examples of companies that are currently developing this technology are Digital Airways with the Kaleido product, e-sim, mobile arsenal, and Qualcomm with UIOne for the BREW environment.
  • Mobile phones will include various speech technologies as they are being developed. Many phones already have rudimentary speech recognition in a form of voice dialling. However, to support more natural speech recognition and translation, a drastic improvement in the state of technology in these devices is required.
  • New technologies are being explored that will utilize the Extended Internet and enable mobile phones to treat a barcode as a URL tag. Phones equipped with barcode reader-enabled cameras will be able to snap photos of barcodes and direct the user to corresponding sites on the Internet. Examples of companies that are currently developing this technology are Neomedia (via Paperclick), and Scanbuy.
  • Developments in miniaturised hard disks and flash drives to solve the storage space issue, therefore opening a window for phones to become portable music libraries and players similar to the iPod.
  • The emergence of integration capabilities with other unlicensed access technologies such as a WiMAX and WLAN, as well as allowing handover between traditional operator networks supporting GSM, CDMA and UMTS to unlicensed mobile networks. The new standard (UMA) has been developed for this.
  • Further improvements in battery life will be required. Colour screens and additional functions put increasing demands on the device's power source, and battery developments may not proceed sufficiently fast to compensate. However, different display technologies, such as OLED displays, e-paper or retinal displays, smarter communication hardware (directional antennae, multi-mode and peer-to-peer phones) may reduce power requirements, while new power technologies such as fuel cells may provide better energy capacity.
  • Speculative improvements in the future may be inspired by an English team led by James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau who in 2002, developed an implant designed to be inserted into a tooth during dental surgery. This device consists of a radio receiver and transducer, which transmits the sound via bone conduction through the jawbone into the ear. Sound is transmitted via radio waves from another device (ostensibly a mobile phone) and received by the implant. The implant is currently powered externally, given that no current power source is small enough to fit inside the tooth with it. In addition, the implant was only designed to receive signals, not transmit them. Directly tapping into the inner ear or the auditory nerve is already technologically feasible and will become practical as surgical methods advance.
  • New technology in Japan has combined the RFID chip principle into the handset and hooked it up to a network of readers and interfaces. The system, pioneered by NTT Docomo and SonyEricsson, is called Felica and there are around 10,000 convenience stores where one can now use a phone to pay for goods just by 'swiping' it over a flat reader. By charging up a phone with pre-paid cash credits, it can act as a sophisticated mobile-phone wallet. The technology is proving popular and there are now even vending machines that accept this form of payment.
  • The delivery of multimedia content including video to mobiles is beginning to become a reality with two main competing standards DMB -Digital Multimedia Broadcasting - and DVB-H - a handset version of the Digital Video Broadcasting standard. These methods avoid swamping the network by using traditional broadcasting. Turning the mobile phone into a phone + media receiving device.

Terminology

Mobile phone terms

Brick 
A large-sized early handheld mobile phone, such as the Motorola International 3200, nearly the size of a VHS video cassette, with the keypad and microphone on the narrow side.
Candybar 
A housing shape that has no hinges and resembles an oblong candy bar (US).
Cell phone or cellular telephone 
Term used currently in the United States (and in other countries as well during the 1980s) to refer to most mobile phones. It technically applies specifically to mobile phones which use a cellular network. In developing mobile phone technology, American electrical engineers saw the main technical problem as achieving a smooth handoff from one radio antenna to the next. After they gave the name "cell" to the zone covered by each antenna, it was a natural choice for them to apply the term "cellular" to both the technology and the phones that ran on it.
Clamshell 
A phone that opens up to reveal the keypad, microphone, and earpiece; these are typically more compact than other designs. Often called "flip phones".
cp 
short for cellphone
Handset
The term handset is used by cell-phone manufacturers to refer to a mobile phone. Also commonly used by industry insiders.
Handy 
Pronounced "Hendi", is a pseudo-anglicism, derived from the term Handy Talkie for a handheld military radio (also known as walkie-talkie), that is used in Austria and Germany for a mobile phone (rare alternative spelling: Händi). In German, the word "Handy" is derived from "handgehaltenes (or hand-held) Telefon." Similarly another pseudo-English term Hand phone is used in East and South Asian countries like South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore.
H/P 
short for hand phone
Hands free car kit
cell phone accessory use to talk while keeping hands on the steering wheel.
Mobile phone 
A term covering cellular phones, satellite phones and any phones giving wide ranging mobility, used in most English-speaking countries except the United States.
Mobile 
Short for 'mobile phone', a term in everyday usage in some English-speaking countries such as the UK.
Satellite phone 
A mobile phone which communicates with a satellite rather than a land-based network.
Wireless phone 
A term that generally refers to a Wi-Fi VoIP phone but is sometimes used by the mobile phone industry to describe mobile phones.
Ringtone 
A song or tune that is played when a cell phone is receiving a call.
3G phone 
A mobile phone which uses a 3G network, with greater bandwidth allowing faster data downloads and face to face video calling.

Related systems which are not cellphones

Cordless Phone (Portable Phone) 
Cordless phones are standard telephones with radio handsets. Unlike mobile phones, cordless phones use private base stations that are not shared between subscribers. The base station is connected to a land-line.
Radio Phone 
This is an term which covers radios which could connect into the telephone network. These phones may not be mobile, for example, they may require a mains power supply.
Professional Mobile Radio 
Professional mobile radio systems are very similar to cellphone systems and attempts have even been made to use TETRA, the international digital PMR standard, to implement public mobile networks, but normally PMR systems are sufficiently separate from the phone network to not really be considered phones but rather radios.

Terms in other languages

Mobile phones are known as:

  • celulares (singular form celular) in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Puerto Rico and other Spanish-speaking countries as the Spanish word for Cellular. It is also used in Portuguese-speaking Brazil.
  • cep telefonu (pocket phone) in Turkey
  • dzhiesem (джиесем) (from GSM) in Bulgaria, refers only to GSM mobile phones
  • Farsími (Official for all mobile phone systems), Gemsi (means young sheep, referring to GSM), GSM-sími (For phones using the GSM System), or NMT-sími (For phones using the Nordic Mobile Telephone-system) in Iceland
  • fònaichean làimhe (meaning hand phone; singular form fòn làimhe) or fònaichean phoca (meaning pocket phone; singular form fòn phoca) in Scottish Gaelic
  • fón póca, teileafón póca ('pocket telephone') or guthán soghluaiste ('mobile telephone') in Irish
  • GSMs in Belgium.
  • hand phones or handphones (핸드폰) in many Asian countries such as South Korea. In South Korea, it is also called hyudae jeonhwa (휴대 전화; 携帶電話) or hyudaepon (휴대폰).
  • handyphone in the Philippines by Globe Telecom (used by the main mobile branch of Globe, Globe Handyphone)
  • Handys in Germany and Austria
  • telefon-hamráh or hamráh (تلفن همراه, literally companion phone) in Iran
  • jawwal (mobile) in Saudi Arabia
  • Keitai (携帯, portable, short for keitai denwa, 携帯電話, portable telephone) in Japan; semantic development is very close to words like mobile
  • khelyawi (cellular) in Lebanon
  • kinitó (κινητό), short for kinitó tiléfono (κινητό τηλέφωνο), which means mobile phone in Greece and Cyprus
  • komórki (singular form komórka) or telefon komórkowy, meaning cells/cellular phone in Poland
  • mahmool (محمول) in Arabic
  • matkapuhelimet (literally travel-phones, singular form matkapuhelin) or kännykät (singular form kännykkä, very close in meaning to the German Handy) in Finland; actually trademarked by Nokia in 1987 but fallen into generic use and would probably not be upheld any more if contested in a court of law
  • Meu Teu (มือถือ) in Thailand
  • mobieltjes in the Netherlands
  • mobifon (мобифон), a contraction of mobilen telefon (мобилен телефон) in Bulgaria, which came into usage with the introduction of 1G mobile phones. As GSM mobile phones became more widely used, some started calling them dzhiesem as to distinguish them from 1G phones. The remaining 1G phones are still refered to as mobifon, while GSM phones are refered to by most as dzhiesem, although it is looked down upon by some.
  • mobil in Denmark, Hungary, Norway, Slovakia and Sweden
  • mobiles in Australia, India, Ireland, New Zealand, UK
  • mobilní telefony (singular form mobilní telefon), or simply mobily (mobil) in Czech Republic
  • mobilny telefon (= mobile phone), or mobilnik for short. Older names are sotovy telefon (= cell phone) and trubka (= handset) in Russia
  • mòbils in Andorra
  • mobiltelefon in Denmark, Hungary, Norway, Sweden (sometimes nalle in Sweden, meaning teddy bear translated to English, originally referring to the term yuppie-nalle since until the late 1980s only rich yuppies could afford them and they showed them off in a way that looked as they were carrying a yuppie teddy bear, nowadays only nalle is used representing that people always carry them around and feel insecure if they misplace them, like a child missing their teddy bear)
  • mobilus telefonas or mobilus in Lithuania
  • /pelefon/ (literally wonder-phone), as derived from the first such operator, or /najad/ (mobile) in Israel
  • móviles (móvil) in Spanish and mòbils (mòbil) in Catalan in Spain
  • Natel ("Nationales Autotelefon") in Switzerland
  • Ponsel (telepon selular, cellular phones), or HP (shortened from Hand Phone, but pronounced ha-pe, not like HP in English) in Indonesia
  • poŝtelefonoj ("pocket phones", pronounced poshtelefonoy) by users of Esperanto
  • portable (literally portable) in France
  • sau kei (hand machine) in Hong Kong*
  • shǒu jī (手機 hand machine * Same term for Hong Kong) or xíng dòng dǐan hùa (行動電話 cellphone) in Mainland China and Taiwan
  • Telefonino (meaning small phone), or Cellulare (short form for Telefono cellulare) in Italy
  • telefon selolari (cellular phone) in formal hebrew. Most of the Israelis say pelephone (פלאפון) like the name of the first mobile company.
  • telefon mobil (pl. telefoane mobile), but the short form is more common: mobil (mobile) in Romania
  • telemóveis (singular form telemóvel) in Portugal
  • telefoonka gacanta (literally "hand's phone") in Somalia
  • tumors as a slang term in English
  • celular or cel in Albania.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has more media related to:

Integrated devices

External links

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