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I've recently had the chance to put my hands on a Siemens P1, one of the first GSM phones from back in 1992, sold to end customers about one year after the official launch of the first GSM networks on the 1st of July 1991 as reported in two previous posts here and here. Two things fascinate me about this phone:

First, its (comparatively) enormous size. It's already portable, but bulky and heavy and the antenna with its metallic socket alone weighs more than my current smart phone.

This is where we have come from in modern digital mobile communication, 19 years ago, bulky and supporting a data rate for voice communication of roughly 20 kbit/s (including the coding overhead). And it came at a cost of well over 1500 Euros, which 20 years ago was an even higher price than it sounds today.

Today, mobile devices are a fraction of the size and cost, voice telephony is but one of many applications now integrated and data rates have soared beyond 100 MBit/s with the latest LTE chips. In other words, a speed-up factor of 5000. Compare that to cars for example and how many cars from back then are still on the road. Quite a number of them. In other words, the life cycle of cars is an order of a magnitude longer than that of mobile phones. More true today than ever.

And the second thing that fascinates me about the P1 is that the phone still works today (starting with software version 18.6.1993). It's a bit picky about SIM cards but I managed to find one that works with it. Another nice thing is the start-up time, well, or rather the absence of it. You hit the power button and it is on. Instantly. Not everything went in the right direction in the last 19 years…

Other GSM phone manufactuers of the day that could deliver something in 1992: Orbitel, Motorola, Panasonic and Nokia. A bit later, in 1993 more companies could finally deliver soemthing. Names like Alcatel, AEG and PKI are mentioned here. Interesting how few of them have survived over time and who dominates the market today.

As reported in the press and here yesterday, it's been 20 years since the first GSM call was made in a commercial network. July 1st 1991, what's behind the date? According to this book on the history of GSM in Germany, published in 1994 (!), the date was set already in the mid 1980's as the official launch date in all European countries (see page 274). But as always ever since, networks are launched without really having mobile devices to use them. Let me quote from that page (translated from German):

"The fathers [of GSM] had agreed in the concert of the post ministers in the middle of the 1980 on 1. July 1991 [as the launch date]. A glittering celebration, moved by the thought of European harmonization should have been celebrated in all of Europe. But it didn't work out. The launch date burst like a big and colorful soap bubble. It burst among other reasons because many other nations [other than Germany] were not in a hurry to launch their GSM networks for a variety of reasons. In Germany, however, things were prepared for a timely launch. But even here nothing happened on 1st July 1991. Only a full year later could the age of GSM finally begin."

The book doesn't reveal whether a similar network launch like in Finland was done on that day as the text deals more with the availability of mobile phones that are actually sold to customers rather than making the first phone call with a pre-commercial device. From my point of view this does not in any way lessen what happened on the 1st July 1991, as a phone call is a phone call, no matter what the device was it was done with. So I come back with my question from the previous post: Where does that cable lead to from the headset the prime minister of Finland had in his hand? How big was that box?

So why where there no devices for the full launch in 1991? Now that's another interesting story and it involves network manufacturers, handset manufacturers, a company called Rhode & Schwarz and the threat of an interim type approval. But that's a story for another day 🙂

Lightreading, NSN and others report today that 20 years ago on this day, July 1st 1991, the first GSM phone call was made in a commercial network in Finland.  For the details have a look here and here.

So by all means, happy birthday GSM! Beyond the picture I’d really like to know to what kind of box that cable from the handset leads to!? How big was that first GSM phone used then?

Incidentally, a number of network operators in Germany have gone commercial today with their LTE networks. Just a coincidence?

And here’s a video clip of the event, enjoy!

 

This week I was at Medienforum NRW 2011 in Cologne to give a presentation on the technology behind LTE and also had the pleasure to attend a number of other presentations and discussion rounds as well.

One that surprised me in particular was a session on net neutrality. One of the participants and keynote speakers was Fritz Joussen, CEO of Vodafone Germany, a charismatic man that knows how to argue and entertain, in the company since the very beginning back in 1992. I expected to get quite a critical view on net neutrality from his point of view but was quite surprised about the following thoughts:

When asked if it is a good idea to charge content providers for access to the network or higher quality of service he said that he doesn't think it makes sense to develop a network "against the customer with the content provider" (" […] gegen eigene Kunden mit Inhalteanbieter.")

Further he said that he is of the opinion that if services are prevented to reach the customer the market as a whole will not happen ("Wenn Sie Dienste verbieten, wird der Markt hinterher nicht passieren").

And then: "I know where my money comes from, it comes from my subscribers".

And for those of you who speak German and still remember Boris Becker commercials for AOL back from the modem days I found this statement quite amusing concerning LTE and rural deployments: "Das ganze Dorf ist drin!" (sorry, no translation possible, the joke would be lost).

One information that is pretty hard to come by is which carrier in any one country holds what kind and how much spectrum. I've always been wondering if the coverage and speed situation in the US is perhaps due to too little spectrum available but the best I could do so far was summing up the available capacity per band. For details look here. How much each carrier has available, though, can't be derived from that. But recently, I've come across this interesting paper that shows how much spectrum each US carrier has available and in which band in table 5.

Let's take AT&T for example and compare that to the spectrum available to, lets say, Vodafone in Germany:

• In the 850 MHz band AT&T 2×12.5 MHz available, which compares directly to the 2×12.5 MHz (uplink/downlink) Vodafone has available in the 900 MHz band. While Vodafone uses the complete spectrum for GSM, AT&T runs both GSM and UMTS over the band.

• In the 1900 MHz band AT&T has 2×10 MHz available and uses it for GSM and UMTS service. This compares to the 2×10 MHz Vodafone has available in the 2100 MHz band it uses for UMTS services + 2×5 MHz in the 1800 MHz band used for GSM. In other words, Vodafone has a bit more spectrum, but not that much).

• AT&T has 2×7.5 MHz in the AWS (1700/2100) MHz band that I assume it doesn't use at the moment. 

• And finally, AT&T has 2×15 MHz in the 700 MHz digital dividend band. That compares to the 2×10 MHz Vodafone has in the 800 MHz band after the auction last year.

In other words, so far, the two carriers have about the same amount of spectrum in comparative frequency bands (and could hence offer the same quality in terms of coverage and speed).

Interesting twist relevant for the future: Vodafone has an additional 2×20 MHz in the 2600 MHz band it got during the spectrum auctions in 2010 for their LTE network. And I am sure they will put to good use.

Some time ago, I had a post on the many uses I have for a public VPN service today beyond just security aspects. But there is also an unwelcome downside to it that has hit me a few times now: Trust: When some websites detect the IP address of the VPN egress point they do strange things. Rebtel for example, that I use for international calls, immediately locks my account when I try to log in over the VPN as I recently discovered. Only an eMail to their support team unlocked the account again with a notice not to use them over the VPN. Great… Also, I suspect (but do not have complete proof) the credit card payment system of Thalys and SNCF (train operators) to refuse credit card payment requests with strange error messages if they come from an IP address of the VPN service. So it seems some companies have made bad experiences with traffic coming from such services. Fortunately, this behavior is not very common so far.

When reading this post on MocoNews recently I felt yet again reassured of the benefits of open mobile platforms where the user is in charge of what he wants to do with a device and which apps he either loads from one of several app stores or can install even directly onto the device if he wants to. According to the report, US lobbyists and lawmakers have pushed Apple to revise once again their app store rules, banning certain apps. Not that I don't like not seeing apps of this nature in an app store but once more, freedom and openness is further curtailed and I really have to wonder who will come next with what kind of demands. But fortunately there's choice and alternatives are available. Happy side-loading and app store choosing!

In the previous company I worked for, Instant Messaging was an integral part of office communication. Situated somewhere between a phone call and and email, one could quickly get information from someone without the full disturbance a phone call incurs and the long response times and explanations in an email. Moderate use of course was highly recommended and by and large it worked exceptionable well.

For two years now, however, I have to do without it as my current employer does have an Instant Messaging applications as part of its supported IT infrastructure and third party software is not allowed to be installed on the computer. And even after two years I miss it as a tool. Often, I don't want to call someone unless absolutely necessary but an eMail is too slow so I end up calling. Not very efficient.

Perhaps Instant Messaging on smartphones would be an alternative as most people in my environment are always-on these days anyway. Even critical mass might not be too hard to reach as Google Talk on Android phones gets activated by default anyway. But then the solution would lack the ease of a real keyboard thus making it clunky to use for most people. Also, exchanging company information over an unsecured channel is not the right thing to do.

One of the essential things that keep me glued to my Nokia N8 is Nokia maps for navigation and the possibility of downloading maps of whole countries for offline navigation. This is vitally important for me as I often travel to other countries and roaming charges are highly prohibitive for online mapping solutions such as Google maps. Over time, Google has added features to download mapping data but for navigation, that's not quite the same. But recently, there's been another report (link in German) that Google will soon release an offline component to Google Maps Navigation. Very good, I can't wait!

I have to admit that Skype's recent update behavior did not go down well with me. Yes, everybody has network and security issues that have to be dealt as quickly as possible. However, pushing down 20 MB updates without asking the user first just to fix a few things is not the right thing in every situation. When I am traveling, for example and have a 50 MB budget before I have to spend another 15 Euros, an uninvited Skype update is very annoying. Guys, at least you could give me the option to switch on a notification via your options menu. I fully agree that the average user shouldn't be concerned with this but an option for those who need it would be great. Oh and by the way, how about using delta updates instead of full blown installation packages? That would be great for my scenario above and I am sure it would reduce your update server load as well. Something really worth thinking about now that you seem to push one update per week…