Mobile phones

A Nokia 6275i mobile phone
Source: Nokia

Isn’t it amazing: it was reported in September 2006 that there are now two and a half billion mobile phones in use around the world!

That’s double the one billion phones reportedly in use in 2002 and very fast growth for a device introduced only around twenty years ago.

The mobile phone has different names around the world. In South East Asia, it is commonly referred to as the handphone, which is short for hand-held phone. In America, Canada and parts of Europe, it is called the cell phone, which is short for cellular phone. This name is based on the technology behind mobile phones. Mobile phones work through a radio network of base stations commonly called cell sites .

Mobile phones started out as a kind of two-way radio using the telephone network to send and receive messages. Think of a walkie-talkie, and think how that resembles an early version of our mobile phones today.

Today’s mobile phones are much more flexible; aside from making and receiving phonecalls, you can now take photographs, record and play videos, receiving radio and television transmissions and even accessing the internet.