By Brenda Coxe
The world that surrounds the business traveler has undergone dozens of changes just in the last fifteen years. Mobile technology began with the stationary car phone, a technology that first saw limited use in the 1950s.
In their early days, car phones could only be used within the range of the service provider, which often made them unreliable and subject to loss of service when traveling through several cell areas during a conversation. OK, so not so much has really changed!)
By 1970, technology had been developed that allowed a user to pass through several areas of service without losing the conversation. Later technology included a transportable phone called a "bag phone" that had a cigarette lighter plug that allowed the phone to be used as either a mobile or a portable phone. Figure A shows how phones have changed over the years.
FIGURE A
This photo, courtesy of Andy Norman, shows how phones have changed over the years. (click for larger image)
First generation
The Motorola DynaTAC8000X was the first handheld mobile phone that was approved for commercial distribution. The remainder of the 1980s included a proliferation of cellular phones that utilized cellular networks and used multiple base stations located close to one another.
Second generation
This era, in the 1990s, included the introduction of the first digital cellular phones and allowed for quicker signaling between phone and network.
At this time, technology began to trend away from larger phones and lean toward smaller, hand-held devices along with other advances such as energy-efficient and longer-lasting batteries that were made possible in part because of the higher density of cellular sites and increased levels of usage.
Third generation
As we entered into the 21st century, other changes in cellular service appeared such as text messaging, picture and video messages, camera phones, phones with MP3 players, V-cast technology for music downloads, Web access, Bluetooth-enabled wireless headsets, email-access, and much more.
What began as simple and basic car phone technology has now evolved into a generation of cellular phones that can double as hand-held computers. For the business traveler, this technology has allowed us to make the transition from sitting in our offices all day to spending more time on the road visiting customers without having to worry about missing important phone calls or emails.
It also has a way of preventing us from being able to get away from it all.
Taking advantage of modern cellular technology
Today's cellular capabilities can best be described as "cellular technology, plus". With mobile devices that have the ability to not only send and receive calls, but videos, pictures, and emails, we business travelers of the 21st century is in a better position to devote time to our customers and less time sitting in the office attending meetings and attempting to reach customers from the office phone.
