Mobile and personal communications in the 90s

Abstract

Today’ two major consumer wireless communications services, paging and cellular telephony, both grew out of services which began in the 1950s. At the outset of both services, industrial applications dominated. Paging and Cellular Telephony applications have grown dramatically and are rapidly becoming commonplace in the consumer marketplace. At the end of 1994, paging had grown to a worldwide market serving 50 million users, a 40% growth rate in a market some ‘experts’ had expected to all but disappear as a result of cellular. Cellular telephone users numbered 52 million worldwide at the end of 1994, representing a 58% growth rate. Both markets have been fueled by increasing functionality, shrinking acquisition cost, enhanced portability and ever improving coverage of service.