Today marks the 40th anniversary of the first mobile phone call, made in New York from a Motorola DynaTAC to competitor AT&T. Martin Cooper, a US engineer, reportedly said, 'I'm ringing you just to see if my call sounds good at your end'.
Trevor Connell, Managing Director, Siemens Enterprise Communications, noted that mobile phone technology has come a long way since then, saying: "The mobile phone has completely transformed both our personal and professional lives. The Motorola DynaTAC was nine inches tall and had a talk-time of 35 minutes. Now we expect our smartphones to last the working day and fit into our pockets.
"We've seen a raft of advances in telecommunication technologies in the last 40 years, with smartphones now able to send SMS, MMS, video and connect to the internet. The mobile phone industry is the fastest-growing in the world. The consumerisation of the mobile phone has not only changed the way we communicate, it has changed the way we work."
An important advancement driving the trend of mobile working and supported by smartphones is video conferencing and video telephony, pointed out Connell. "Mobile teams can now interact and collaborate as if they were in a single meeting room," he said. "These video technologies have made significant progress - from expensive business services in the 1990s to mainstream business and consumer products. Today's work colleague or family member can be many miles away. However, rich multi-media technology, including video seems set to bridge that gap and offer a personal approach, in a way a voice call cannot.
"The launch of 4G LTE in the UK at the beginning of the year may just be the catalyst to see businesses and consumers begin to integrate video conferencing into every part of their life, just as they did with mobile voice calls 40 years ago. With the Internet truly going mobile, we could be on the verge of a similar telecommunication phenomenon."