Have look below and see how far we've come - from voice only to 2007's Xmas hit the iPhone, the mobile handset remains in evolution, so keep checking back from time to time!

1981
NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephony) – first mobile network The first 'mobile' phone, the Mobira Senator 450 Created through a partnership by Nokia and Finnish television maker Salora Nearly 10 kilos
1986
NMT had spread throughout rest of Scandinavia First one million subscribers Nokia introduced the first handheld phone called Mobira Cityman
1990
Ten million subscribers had signed up for the service In 1991 GSM network was launched by Radiolinja in Finland Mobile telephony would begin to be seen as having true mass market potential
1996
GSM had delivered mobile telephony to the masses 100 million people had subscribed to cellular services worldwide US handset manufacturer Motorola also hit upon a design that was to be repeated time and time again by handset manufacturers in years to come
2000
Mobile subscriber base had quintupled to 500 million users Mobile phones were smaller and more affordable Nokia managed to shrink the handset down to truly pocket sized dimensions with the 8260, as well as removing the external antenna
2002
Global mobile subscriber base had doubled yet again and the first billion milestone was achieved PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) vendors such as Research In Motion (RIM) and Palm were beginning to see opportunities in adding cellular capabilities to their devices RIM released the BlackBerry 5810, allowing to access email anytime and anywhere It proved an addictive service, eventually spawning the term 'crackberry'
2005
Double yet again, reaching the significant milestone of two billion subscriptions in September 2005 Competition was becoming exceptionally fierce in Western Europe Mobile phone was fast becoming a fashion accessory, with Motorola taking a new twist on an old design with the release of the popular RAZR V3c
2007
July of 2007 - 3 billon subscriptions - close to half the world's population Voice revenues were falling and operators were increasingly looking to mobile data and content to bump up their sales Apple shook the entire industry with the release of the iPhone, which set the bar for handset designs in the months to come
Thank you for the inspiration to www.telecoms.com