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Cellular Phones

The mobile phone or mobile, also called a cellular phone, or cell phone is a long-range, portable electronic device used for mobile communication that uses a network of specialized base stations known as cell sites. In addition to the standard voice function of a telephone, current mobile phones can support many additional services such as SMS for text messaging, email, packet switching for access to the Internet, and MMS for sending and receiving photos and video (camera phones). Most current mobile phones connect to a cellular network of base stations (cell sites), which is in turn interconnected to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) (the exception is satellite phones such as GSM Phones).

In 1908 the U.S. Patent Office issues a U.S. Patent Number 887357 for a wireless telephone, to Nathan B. Stubblefield of Murray, Kentucky. He applied this to "cave radio" telephones and not directly to cellular telephony as the term is currently understood.  However, the introduction of cells for mobile phone base stations, invented in 1947 by Bell Labs engineers at AT&T, was further developed by Bell Labs during the 1960s. Radiophones have a long and varied history going back to shore-to-ship radio telephony, through the Second World War with military use of radio telephony links and civil services in the 1950s, while hand-held cellular radio devices have been available since 1973. Due to their low costs and rapid deployment, mobile phone networks, and digital cell phones made by Apple, Blackberry, HP, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Samsung,   and Sony Ericsson have since spread rapidly throughout the world, outstripping the growth of fixed telephony.