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30 Years of Mobile History in UK: 1985 - 2015


In January 1985 the UK launched its first mobile networks. Now, thirty years on, many people and companies in the UK have been celebrating this enormous achievements and advances that have been made since then and which have seen the mobile evolve from a humble telephone into the multimedia pocket computer which has become such an essential part of modern life. It was simply not possible in 1985 to envisage a country that would be able to boast more active mobile phones than people or to have along the way clocked up several world firsts, and be now leading on the deployment of 4G and shaping the future 5G technologies.

Back in 2015, University of Salford organised a seminar to mark 30 years of mobile networks in the UK. Speakers from the 4 UK MNOs, EE, Vodafone, Three, O2 and other contributors pieced together a ‘phenomenal story’ of the mobile phone at MediaCity campus on Saturday, September 12, to mark three decades of the technological revolution in the UK.

The talks are embedded in the YouTube playlist below and contains the following sessions:

1. Launch of Vodafone – Professor Nigel Linge, University of Salford
2. Launch of Cellnet - Mike Short, O2 (Telefonica)
3. The emergence of GSM - Stephen Temple, 5GIC
4. The launch of Mercury one2one and Orange - Graham Fisher, Bathcube Telecoms
5. From voice to data - Stuart Newstead, Ellare
6. Telepoint - Professor Nigel Linge, University of Salford
7. 3G - Erol Hepsaydir, 3 UK
8. Handset evolution and usage patterns - Julian Divett, EE
9. 4G and onwards to 5G – Professor Andy Sutton, EE  and University of Salford.



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