The Symbian OS (779886), страница 3
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The range is covered, in other words,for everyone from the hobbyist to the enterprise developer to phonemanufacturers and commercial developers.1In [Stroustrup 1994, p2].Part 1The Background to Symbian OS1Why Phones Are Different1.1 The Origins of Mobile PhonesThe first mobile phone networks evolved from the technologies used inspecialist mobile phone radio systems, such as train cab and taxi radios,and the closed networks used by emergency and police services andsimilar military systems.The first ever open, public network (i.e., open to subscribing customers rather than restricted to a dedicated group of private users) wasthe Autoradiopuhelin (ARP, or car radio phone) network in Finland.It was a car-based system, inaugurated in 1971 by the Finnish statetelephone company, that peaked at around 35 000 subscribers [Haikio2002, p.
158].A more advanced system, the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) network, was opened a decade later in 1981 as a partnership between theNordic state telecommunications monopolies (of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden), achieving 440 000 subscribers by the mid-1990s, thatis, more than a ten-fold increase on ARP [Haikio 2002, p. 158]. UnlikeARP, a car boot was no longer required to house the radio hardware.Ericsson, and later Nokia, were primary suppliers of infrastructure andphones, helping to give both companies an early edge in commercialmobile phone systems.Elsewhere, Motorola and AT&T competed to introduce mobile phoneservices in the Americas, with the first Advanced Mobile Phone System(AMPS) network from AT&T going public in 1984.
European networksbased on an AMPS derivative (Total Access Communication System,TACS) were opened in 1985 in the UK (Vodafone), Italy, Spain andFrance.1 Germany had already introduced its own system in 1981. In1See for example the company history at www.vodafone.com.4WHY PHONES ARE DIFFERENTJapan, a limited car-based mobile phone service was introduced in19792 by NTT, the not-yet privatized telecommunications monopoly, butwider roll-out was held back until 1984. A TACS-derived system wasinaugurated in Japan in 1991.All these systems were cellular-based, analog networks, so-called firstgeneration (1G) mobile phone networks (ARP is sometimes described aszeroth-generation).The history of the second-generation (2G) networks begins in 1982when the Groupe Speciale Mobile (GSM) project was initiated by ETSI,the European telecommunications standards body, to define and standardize a next-generation mobile phone technology,3 setting 1991for the inauguration of the first system with a target of 10 millionsubscribers by 2000.
GSM was endorsed by the European Commission in 1984; spectrum agreements followed in 1986; and development began in earnest in 1987. GSM reflected a deliberate socialas well as economic goal, that of enabling seamless communications for an increasingly mobile phone world as part of the widerproject to create a unified Europe. The politics of deregulation wasalso an important factor in the emergence of new mobile phonenetworks as rivals to the traditional monopoly telecommunicationsproviders.4The first GSM call was made, on schedule, in Finland on 1 July 1991,inaugurating the world’s first GSM network, Radiolinja. By 1999, thenetwork had achieved three million subscribers, a ten-fold increase onfirst-generation NMT and a hundred-fold increase on ARP.GSM rapidly expanded in Europe, with new networks opening inthe UK (Vodafone, Cellnet, One2One and Orange), Denmark, Swedenand Holland, followed by Asia, including Hong Kong, Australia andNew Zealand.
By the mid-1990s, new GSM networks had sprung upglobally from the Philippines and Thailand to Iran, Morocco, Latviaand Russia, as well as in the Americas and to a lesser extent theUSA, making GSM the dominant global mobile phone networktechnology.Through the 1990s, GSM penetration rose from a typical 10% afterthree years to 50% and then 90% and more in most markets (all of Europe,for example, with the Nordic countries leading the way, but with Italy2A useful history appears at www2.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/is224/s99/GroupD/project1/paper.1.html.3For a history of GSM see www.gsmworld.com/about/history.shtml, as well as [Haikio2002, p.
128].4Political events unfolding between 1988 and 1992, such as the pulling down of theBerlin Wall, German unification and the collapse of the Soviet Union, were also indirectlysignificant, for example in causing Nokia to refocus on the mobile phone market [Haikio2002, Chapters 5 and 7].FROM 2G TO 3G5and the UK not far behind). By the end of the decade, the USA and Japanwere atypical, with the USA opting for a different technology (CDMA5 )and Japan languishing at less than 50% GSM penetration.61.2 From 2G to 3GFamously, 3G is the technology that the network operators are mostfrequently said to have overpaid for, in terms of their spectrum licenses.(Auctions of the 3G spectrum raised hundreds of billions various currencies globally in the first years of the 21st century.)In the GSM world, 3G means UMTS, the third-generation standarddesigned as the next step beyond GSM, with a few half-steps definedin between including GPRS, EDGE (see [Wilkinson 2002]), and other‘2.5G’ technologies.
In the CDMA world, 3G means CDMA2000. (Inother words the division between the USA and the rest of the worldpersists from 2G into 3G.)The significant jump that 3G makes from 2G is to introduce fullypacketized mobile phone networks. (GPRS, for example, is a ‘halfway’technology that adds packet data to otherwise circuit-switched systems.)The significance of packetization is that it unifies the mobile phonenetworks, in principle, with IP-based (Internet technology) data networks.Japan has led the field since a large-scale 3G trial in 2001 but, as of thelast quarter of 2005, it seems that 3G has arrived ‘for the rest of us’, withthe introduction (finally) of competitively priced 3G networks from thelikes of Vodafone and Orange in Europe, opening the way for competitionto improve the 3G network offering.Disappointingly, in terms of services 3G has not yet found a distinct identity.
But from the phone and software perspective, the storyis rather different. Early problems with the greater power drain compared to GSM, for example, made for clunky phones and poor batterylife. Those problems have been solved and 3G phones are now interchangeable with any others. From a software perspective, there are nolonger particular issues. Symbian OS has been 3G-ready for severalreleases. (From a user perspective, of course, 3G is different because it is‘always on’.)5CDMA, also known as ‘spread spectrum’ transmission, was famously co-invented in aprevious career by Hedy Lamarr, the Hollywood actress.
[Shepard 2002] provides a veryapproachable survey of telecommunications technologies. [Wilkinson 2002] is an excellent,mobile phone-centric survey.6[Haikio 2002, p. 157] presents figures for mobile phone network penetration for 20countries between 1991 and 2001.6WHY PHONES ARE DIFFERENT1.3 Mobile Phone EvolutionMobile phones for the early analog networks were expensive, almostexclusively car-mounted devices selling to a niche market. Equipmentvendors sold direct to customers. Network operators had no retail presence and generated cash flow solely from call revenues.
As the analognetworks evolved into GSM networks, mobile phones were liberatedfrom the car and the early car phones evolved into personal portablephones and then began to shrink until they fitted, firstly, into briefcasesand, finally, into pockets. From around 1994, when GSM started toboom, mobile phones and perhaps even more importantly mobile phonenetwork services began to emerge as potential mass-market products.The iconic Mobira Cityman, introduced by Nokia in 1986, was thesize of a small suitcase and, with its power pack, weighed in at nearly800 grams [Haikio 2002, p.
69]. By 1990, phones had halved in size andweight and they had halved again by 1994, when the Nokia 2100 wasreleased. It was the first ever mass-market mobile phone and weighed inat 200 grams [Haikio 2002, p. 160]. (It is credited with selling 20 millionunits, against an initial target of 400 000.)As it happens, 1998, the year that Symbian was created, saw atemporary market reversal7 but mobile phone uptake boomed againtowards the turn of the millennium.8The PC and mobile phone trend lines crossed in 2000 when mobilephones outsold personal computers globally for the first time9 (by a factorapproaching four: 450 million phones to 120 million PCs). This was alsothe year in which the first Symbian OS phone shipped, the Ericsson R380,followed in 2001 by the Nokia 9210.
Neither were volume successes butboth products were seminal. In particular, the Nokia 9210 instantly putNokia at the top of the sales league for PDAs, ahead of Palm, Compaqand Sharp. (The Communicator was classified by market analysts as aPDA, partly because it had a keyboard, but also partly because Symbianphones really were a new category, and analysts didn’t quite know whatto do with them.) The death of the PDA, much trumpeted since (andreal enough, if Microsoft’s Windows CE sales numbers and the demise ofPalm OS are indicators), probably dates from that point.107Nokia failed to meet sales targets; Motorola issued a profits warning and cut jobs;Philips canceled joint ventures with Lucent; Siemens cut jobs; and Ericsson issued profitswarnings.8Mobile phone telephony thus acquires something of a millennial flavor, see [Myerson2001, p.
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