Mobile Phones and the Creation of the other New Network

In the early 1980s, the first analog mobile phone system, called Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS), became commercially available. AMPS was an immediate success despite its inherent security weaknesses—namely, it was unencrypted and vulnerable to eavesdropping. These failings were to be remedied in the second generation (2G) of mobile phone systems that emerged in the early 1990s.

The success of the first-generation (1G) mobile phones was only the beginning of a massive new market, as second-generation systems emerged to compete for supremacy. In response, the U.S. developed the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) standard and the Europeans established the Global System for Mobile (GSM) standard. Both these standards used digital transmission to rectify many of the 1G standard's failings. The adoption of the new 2G standards in both the U.S. and Europe was widespread, with major technological advances spurred as a result of the technologies' success. The size of the phones shrank as electronics and battery technology improved, and also because of denser cells (coverage areas) and more cell towers, which required less battery power. By the late 1990s, mobile phone subscriber rates reached a tipping point, transforming the mobile phone from a fashion statement into a commodity item.

It wasn't just about the technology and mobility, however. Mobile operators were determined to get a return on investment (ROI), and they pushed innovation in service and marketing to the limits. Prepaid mobile subscriptions became available and were instantly popular. But one protocol in particular would transform the mobile phone into a must-have device: Short Message Service (SMS). SMS was a simple text-message format of less than 120 characters that was initially designed for use by network engineers to communicate with each other over a back channel. However, it soon proved to be a "killer app." SMS was adopted first by young people, who, much to the surprise of carriers and parents, used their phone almost exclusively for text communication rather than voice communication. Eventually, adults became regular users of SMS and "texting" became a standard method of quick, cheap, and easy communication.

Mobile telephony created advances in radio wireless technology that enabled the proliferation of 2G mobile networks. It was those same developments in radio technology, combined with the public's demonstrable desire for mobility, that transformed the modern data network. Suddenly, wireless local area networks (WLANs) became the hot topic in wireless mobility, and the possibilities seemed endless.

Taken from : Wireless and Mobile Device Security