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Happy birthday to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), 20 years ago on July 1 1991, the world’s first GSM call was made by Finnish Prime Minister Harri Holkeri and the historic call used Nokia gear on GSM’s original 900MHz band. Today GSM is all grown up and ruling the world with connecting 1.5 billion people in 212 countries and serving 80% of the planet’s mobile market and GSM was the first fully digital cellular system using TDMA to cram more information into less spectrum and provide better sounding, more reliable calls using less power……………

20 years ago, a telephonic call between two Finnish personalities heralded a mobile technology that has since then transformed the way people communicate worldwide. The Global System for Mobile Communications popularly known as GSM, which is the dominant technology utilised for mobile telephony. With increased mobile penetration as well as availability of different kinds of handsets and the use of GSM is growing by the day compared to competing CDMA technology. GSM has captured over 80 per cent of the global mobile phone market in a span of 20 years and in India, a majority of the 800 million mobile phone customers are using handsets based on GSM technology. GSM technology helps in offering high-quality voice calls and services such as text messaging (SMS). There are 838 GSM operators worldwide, catering to over 4.2 billion subscribers. GSM operators are estimated to have raked in about USD 500 billion in annual revenues in 2009. GSM is today available in 234 countries and independent territories around the globe. The first GSM network was built by Telenokia and Siemens, today’s Nokia Siemens Networks – for the Finnish operator Radiolinja, now operating under the name Elisa. The world’s first GSM call on a commercial network was made on July 1, 1991, between Finland’s former prime minister Harri Holkeri and vice mayor of the city of Tampere Kaarina Suonio. During the call, Holkeri and Suonio discussed the benefits of the new digital GSM technology, including superior voice quality and security, and the fact that the phone’s identity is in the SIM card, making it easy for consumers to choose the product they like.

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