MOBILE PHONES THE REVOLUTION IN MODERN ERA

A century ago, communicating in a hurry meant sending a telegram. If you needed to go yourself, you went by train.Flash forward to today's world of e-mail-ready smart phones and 3G wireless access. If you think those are handy, then get ready: Newer technology is emerging that will significantly change how we stay in touch when we are mobile -- nearly as much as telephones and air planes have changed lives over the last 100 years.

What a mobile phone is?????

A mobile phone is a telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency carrier while the user is moving within a telephone service area. The radio frequency link establishes a connection to the switching systems of a mobile phone operator, which provides access to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Most modern mobile telephone services use a cellular network architecture, and therefore mobile telephones are often also called cellular telephones or cell phones. In addition to telephony, modern mobile phones support a variety of other services, such as text messaging, MMS, email, Internet access, short-range wireless communications (infrared, Bluetooth), business applications, gaming, and photography. Mobile phones which offer these and more general computing capabilities are referred to as smart phones

SIM CARD  HEART OF MOBILE PHONE

GSM feature phones require a small microchip called a Subscriber Identity Module or SIM card, in order to function. The SIM card is approximately the size of a small postage stamp and is usually placed underneath the battery in the rear of the unit. The SIM securely stores theservice-subscriber key (IMSI) and the Ki used to identify and authenticate the user of the mobile phone. The SIM card allows users to change phones by simply removing the SIM card from one mobile phone and inserting it into another mobile phone or broadband telephony device, provided that this is not prevented by a SIM lock.

MODERNIZATION IN PHONES

Technology has the potential to lift people out of poverty. All signs point to the developing world skipping past the eras of landlines and desktop computers and going straight to mobile. That potential for two-way communication is changing the face of international development. “For the first time ever, we’re able to have a clear line to people who are in the middle of nowhere to give them a sense of a future, information, opportunity and choice,” says Chris Fabian, co-lead of UNICEF’s Innovation.

Mobile carrier industry alliance GSMA estimates globally there are now 7.5 billion mobile connections with 3.7 billion unique subscribers. But 10 percent of the Earth’s 7.2 billion people lack access to basic voice and text services, and about a third lack access to 3G or 4G mobile broadband internet. The majority of these uncovered populations live in the rural regions of Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, which together account for 3.4 billion of the 4.8 billion people not yet connected to the internet.

Only 2 percent of African households have a landline, while nearly two-thirds of American households still do. Recent Pew Research Center numbers show that cell phones are as common in Nigeria and South Africa as they are in the United States, with about 90 percent of adults owning mobile phones. It’s worth noting that most of those cell phones in Africa are what we’d call basic or feature phones, capable of calling, texting and maybe basic Internet browsing. Pew found an average of 17 percent of people in Sub-Saharan Africa still do not own a cell phone, but more than half of those people have access to one sometimes.

BENIFITS OF MODERN PHONE SYSTEMS

1.SECURITY AND TRACKING

Mobile phones are commonly used to collect location data. While the phone is turned on, the geographical location of a mobile phone can be determined easily (whether it is being used or not) using a technique known as multilateration to calculate the differences in time for a signal to travel from the mobile phone to each of several cell towers near the owner of the phone.

The movements of a mobile phone user can be tracked by their service provider and, if desired, by law enforcement agencies and their governments. Both the SIM card and the handset can be tracked.

China has proposed using this technology to track the commuting patterns of Beijing city residents.In the UK and US, law enforcement and intelligence services use mobile phones to perform surveillance operations. They possess technology that enables them to activate the microphones in mobile phones remotely in order to listen to conversations which take place near the phone.

2.PAY BY PHONE

Old way

 Pull out your wallet and pay with cash, debit card, or credit card.

New way

 Your cell phone acts as a mobile wallet; you wave the device at a point-of-sale reader to make purchases.

The idea of using your phone to make payments has been around for several years but is finally gaining serious traction, starting in Japan where NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest cellular carrier, launched its mobile phone wallet program in 2004. Now, according to Karen Lurker, communications manager in the U.S. for DoCoMo, there are almost 12 million handsets in the hands of DoCoMo users that support the company's mobile payment system.


How? DoCoMo handles payment two ways, according to Lurker. The first is DoCoMo's Osaifu-Keitai service, which enables you download credits worth as much as 10,000 yen per month, or about $95, to your phone via the company's i-mode data service. When you wave the phone in front of the terminal, the amount of the purchase is deducted from the amount of credit carried on your phone. The amount you actually spend appears on your monthly cell phone bill, according to Lurker.

With the second method, the phone works like a credit card, with your bill being sent to you separately by the credit card company. Ultimately, you'll be able to download your spending information to software on your PC so you can monitor your expenses, Lurker said.

A major limiting factor is that merchants must buy new point-of-sale terminals. However, that's starting to happen quickly in Japan, Lurker said. There are currently about 78,000 stores with terminals that support Osaifu-Keitai and about 25,000 that work with the credit card-like service, with DoCoMo projecting a rapid ramp-up, Lurker said.


While credit card companies in the U.S. say they are working on supporting similar systems, NFC has had a few minor successes here. In particular, Exxon Mobil's Speedpass uses NFC technology -- you wave a "key" in front of a sensor on a gas pump, and the transaction is automatically charged to the credit or debit card you designate.