During the early 1980s, analog cellular
telephone
systems were experiencing rapid growth in Europe, particularly in
Scandinavia and the United Kingdom, but also in France and Germany.
Each country developed its own system, which was incompatible with
everyone else's in equipment and operation. This was an undesirable
situation, because not only was the mobile equipment limited to
operation within national boundaries, which in a unified Europe were
increasingly unimportant, but there was also a very limited market for
each type of equipment, so economies of scale and the subsequent
savings could not be realized.
The Europeans realized this early on,
and in 1982 the Conference of
European Posts and Telegraphs (CEPT) formed a study group called the
Groupe Spécial Mobile (GSM) to study and develop a
pan-European public
land mobile system. The proposed system had to meet certain criteria:
-
Good subjective speech quality
-
Low terminal and service cost
-
Support for international roaming
-
Ability to support handheld
terminals
-
Support for range of new services
and facilities
-
Spectral efficiency
-
ISDN compatibility
In
1989, GSM responsibility was transferred to the European
Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI), and phase I of the GSM
specifications were published in 1990. Commercial service was started
in mid-1991, and by 1993 there were 36 GSM networks in 22 countries.
Although standardized in Europe, GSM is not only a European standard.
Over 200 GSM networks (including DCS1800 and PCS1900) are operational
in 110 countries around the world. In the beginning of 1994, there were
1.3 million subscribers worldwide ,
which had grown to more than 55 million by October 1997. With North
America making a delayed entry into the GSM field with a derivative of
GSM called PCS1900, GSM systems exist on every continent, and the
acronym GSM now aptly stands for Global System for Mobile
communications.
The developers
of GSM chose an unproven (at the time) digital system, as opposed to
the then-standard analog cellular systems like AMPS in the United
States and TACS in the United Kingdom. They had faith that advancements
in compression algorithms and digital signal processors would allow the
fulfillment of the original criteria and the continual improvement of
the system in terms of quality and cost. The over 8000 pages of GSM
recommendations try to allow flexibility and competitive innovation
among suppliers, but provide enough standardization to guarantee proper
interworking between the components of the system. This is done by
providing functional and interface descriptions for each of the
functional entities defined in the system.
TIMELINE :
1982 - The Beginning
-
Nordic
Telecom and Netherlands PTT propose to CEPT (Conference of European
Post and Telecommunications) the development of a new digital cellular
standard that would cope with the ever a burgeoning demands on European
mobile networks.
-
The
European Commission (EC) issues a directive which requires member
states to reserve frequencies in the 900 MHz band for GSM to allow for
roaming.
1986
1987
-
September
- 13 operators and administrators from 12 areas in the CEPT GSM
advisory group sign the charter GSM (Groupe Spéciale Mobile)
MoU "Club"
agreement, with a launch date of 1 July 1991 .
-
The
original French name was later changed to Global System for Mobile
Communications , but the original GSM acronym stuck.
-
GSM spec drafted.
1989
1990
-
Phase 1 GSM 900 specifications are
frozen
-
DCS adaptation starts
-
Validation systems implemented
-
First GSM World congress in Rome
with 650 Participants
1991
-
First GSM spec demonstrated
-
DCS specifications are frozen
-
GSM World Congress Nice has 690
Participants
1992
-
January - First GSM network
operator is Oy Radiolinja Ab in Finland
-
December 1992 - 13 networks on air
in 7 areas
-
GSM World Congress Berlin - 630
Participants
1993
-
GSM demonstrated for the first time
in Africa at Telkom '93 in Cape Town
-
Roaming agreements between several
operators established
-
December 1993 - 32 networks on air
in 18 areas
-
GSM World Congress Lisbon with 760
Participants
-
Telkom '93 held in Cape Town. First
GSM systems shown.
1994
-
First GSM networks in Africa
launched in South Africa
-
Phase 2 data/fax bearer services
launched
-
Vodacom becomes first GSM network
in the world to implement data/fax
-
GSM World Congress Athens with 780
Participants
-
December 1994 - 69 networks on air
in 43 areas
1995
-
GSM MoU is formally registered as
an Association registered in Switzerland - 156 members from 86 areas.
-
GSM World Congress Madrid with 1400
Participants
-
December 1995 117 networks on air
in 69 areas
-
Fax, data and SMS roaming started
-
GSM phase 2 standardization is
completed, including adaptation for PCS 1900 (PCS)
-
First PCS 1900 network live 'on
air' in the USA
-
Telecom '95 Geneva - Nokia shows
33.6 kbps multimedia data via GSM
-
Namibia goes on-line
-
Ericsson
337 wins GSM phone of
the year
-
US FCC auctions off PCS licenses
1996
-
GSM MoU is formally registered as
an Association registered in Switzerland
-
December 1996 120 networks on air
in 84 areas
-
GSM World Congress in Cannes
-
GSM MoU Plenary held in Atlanta GA,
USA
-
8K SIM launched
-
Pre-Paid GSM SIM Cards launched
-
Bundled billing introduced in South
Africa
-
Libya goes on-line
-
Option International
launches
world's first GSM/Fixed-line modem
1997
1998
-
Botswana GSM goes live
-
GSM World Congress Cannes (2/98)
-
Vodacom Introduces Free VoiceMail
-
MTN Gets Uganda Tender
-
GSM SIM Cracked in USA
-
Over 2m GSM 1900 users
-
MTN Gets Rwanda Tender
-
MTN follows with free voicemail
-
Rwanda GSM Live
-
First HSCSD trials in Singapore
-
Vodacom launches Yebo!Net 10/98
-
Iridium Live 11/98
-
First GSM Africa Conference (11/98)
-
125m GSM 900/1800/1900 users
worldwide (12/98)
-
Option International launches
FirstFone
-
MTN launches CarryOver minutes
1999
-
GSM Conference in Cannes 2/99
-
165m GSM 900/1800/1900 users
worldwide
-
GPRS trials begin and USA and
Scandanavia 1/99
-
WAP trials in France and Italy 1/99
-
CellExpo Africa 5/99
-
Eight Bidders for Third SA Cell
License
-
GSM MoU Joins 3GPP
-
MTN SA Head of GSM MoU
-
First GPRS networks go live
-
Bluetooth specification v1.0
released
2000
-
GSM Conference in Cannes 3/2000
-
By 12/2000 480m GSM 900/1800/1900
users worldwide
-
First GPRS networks roll out
-
Mobey Forum Launched
-
MeT Forum Launched
-
Location Interoperability Forum
Launched
-
First GPRS terminals seen
-
Nokia releases SmartMessaging spec
-
SyncML spec released
2001
-
GSM Conference in Cannes 2/2001
-
By 5/2001 500m GSM 900/1800/1900
users worldwide
-
16 billion SMS message sent in
April 2001
-
500 million people are GSM users
(4/01)
Recent comments