Today it is difficult to imagine a modern person without a mobile phone, although only 25 years ago only the wealthiest citizens could afford to buy this device in Russia. According to TMT Consulting, at the end of 2015 there were 251.8 million cellular subscribers in Russia, which is 105.3 million more than the entire population of the country - one and a half mobile phones per person. Telephones have long ceased to be a luxury item. It is all the more interesting to look into the recent past, when mobile phones in Russia were considered exotic, and only a select few could talk to family and friends from different parts of the country.
When did the first mobile phone appear?
Few people know, but the first prototype of a mobile phone appeared in our country, when it was 1957. Of course, the device called LK-1 did not reach the mass market, but it became a huge impetus for the development of wireless communication technologies.
The developer of the first mobile phone was Leonid Ivanovich Kupriyanovich, a Soviet scientist who worked in radio engineering for many years.
The first such gadget to hit the wide market was the famous Motorola DynaTAC 8000X of 1983. It is devices with this appearance that pop up in the minds of modern people when they remember the era of the 80s and 90s. Motorola was a real “brick” that was not convenient to use. However, the telephone was a sign of great wealth for the person holding it in his hands.
Unfortunately, the Iron Curtain did not allow the device to appear on the territory of the USSR. For a long time, Soviet residents lived only with dreams of mobile communications. But the last chairman of the CPSU, Leonid Gorbachev, according to his associates, used a Nokia Mobira Cityman 900 phone. It can be seen in reports on the call of the Soviet leader in Helsinki.
Officially, the first phone tested in Russia was the Nokia Mobira MD 59 NB2. In 1991, the first call from the Russian Federation to the USA was made from this device. Now it’s hard to believe, but this gadget weighed an incredible 3 kilograms. The jokes about the Nokia 3310 are a far cry in comparison.
The appearance of “Sotik” devices among the ordinary population of the country is closely related to the development of the mobile network. Only with GSM integration were local residents able to think about buying a cordless phone. This happened in 1994. True, a limited number of people could afford a mobile device due to the difficult financial and political situation in the country. Cellular phones became widespread in our country only in the 21st century.
Today, the most popular devices in the world are Samsung smartphones. The South Korean company is followed in the ranking by Huawei, and the richest corporation, Apple, closes the top three.
A little history
The development of the first cell phone began in 1947 by the American company Bell Labs. The idea of such a device instantly captured the minds of leading engineers in the USA and Russia. Another American company interested in mobile phones is Motorola. In Russia, in 1957, engineer Leonid Ivanovich Kupriyanovich demonstrated the LK-1 portable telephone. It weighed 3 kg, worked no more than 30 hours, but provided a range of up to 30 km. In 1958, he presented a device weighing 500 g, and already in 1961 a telephone weighing only 70 g allegedly appeared. Only a photograph of this device of dubious quality has survived to this day, the development of which was either stopped or transferred to the special services (supporters of the theories dedicated to the conspiracy).
Instead of this revolutionary device, the Russians saw the Altai device, which could only be transported in a car, which was what the Ambulance employees used. Kupriyanovich's developments formed the basis for several Bulgarian devices produced in 1966 RAT-05, ATRT-05 and the RATC-10 base station, which were used at industrial facilities. In 1973, Motorola put an end to the battle for supremacy: Martin Cooper called Bell Labs from a phone that fit comfortably in his hand and did not require additional accessories. Motorola DynaTac, measuring 22.5 x 12.5 x 3.75 cm, weighed 1.15 kg, consisted of 2000 parts, and the battery charge was only enough for 20 minutes of conversation. It took another 10 years to finalize the mobile phone, and only on March 6, 1983, the phone, weighing 800 grams, went on sale for $3,500.
In Russia, the topic of commercial mobile communications was not raised until 1986. USSR Communications Minister Gennady Kudryavtsev said that the KGB and security forces considered accessible cellular communications a threat to national security. An epoch-making event was the call from Mikhail Gorbachev from Helsinki to Moscow in 1987 using a Nokia Mobira Cityman 900, the first phone for NMT networks. There were 5 years left before the release of the first GSM phone - it was the Nokia 1011 and it changed cellular communications forever.
The first mobile connection in Russia
The history of Russian mobile communications should begin with a call from 1991, about which a little was said earlier. On September 9, the mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, called the head of Seattle, Norman Rice. In the hands of our politician was a Nokia Mobira MD59-NB2, weighing 3 kilograms.
The call was made using the NMT-450 communication standard. Services in this direction were provided by the only operator in the country - Delta Telecom. It would later be taken over by Tele2, and in the early 90s Delta was the pioneer of wireless communications in Russia.
The operator's frequency range was extremely narrow. Only 453-468 MHz. Of course, only selected people in government could use communications. After all, in order to connect to the network, you had to pay a fabulous $5,000. The tariff was the same for everyone: 1 minute – $1. It’s easy to estimate how much the call cost in Soviet and then Russian rubles.
NMT-450 was replaced by American AMPS technology. The event occurred in 1994, although the first standard continued to be used in remote regions of the country until 2009. The AMPS frequency range was wider than its predecessor, but was still within the modest range of 825–890 MHz. The main advantage of the new type of communication was the impressive capacity of the networks. A large number of people could use mobile phones. Of course, if they had enough money.
The first phone to work on the AMPS network weighed only 220 grams. Even by today's standards, this is quite adequate weight for a mobile device.
AMPS existed until 2010. Beeline worked on it in hard-to-reach places for a very long time. But the second generation, called D-AMPS, appeared back in the 90s. It can be called the first digital standard, although sending SMS messages was still unavailable.
Mobile networks became truly widespread in Russia in 1999, when the cost of calls dropped significantly. If then you had to pay $0.5 per minute of conversation, then by 1999 it was only 15 cents. By today's standards, this is still a high cost, but for those years the sharp reduction was a real breakthrough in the industry.
The price of mobility
Not everyone could become the owner of a mobile phone. The average price of the device was $2,500, and the subscriber had to pay almost $2,500 more as a down payment and connection fee. For “only” $5000 you could become mobile and modern. But this was far from the end of the waste. Expensive subscription fees and the price of a minute of conversation forced subscribers to pay at least $200 monthly at the end of 1998. Now communication services with unlimited access to the Internet and messaging cost no more than $10. However, by the end of the 90s, about 20 million SIM cards were sold in the country, but the real boom happened in the early 2000s. There were about 30 million subscribers in the country already in 2003, and by 2010 their number had grown to 216 million. The reduction in the cost of cellular communications was facilitated by the release of increasingly affordable mobile phones, many of which became iconic: Nokia 3310, Siemens A52, Motorola C350, Samsung X100 , Sony Ericsson T610 and many others.
The beginning of the mobile Internet with 2G networks
The main breakthrough in mobile technology was the advent of GSM (2G). The standard worked using SIM cards, so a large number of operators and cell phones appeared on the market. The network appeared back in 1994, but for obvious reasons (high cost) it was practically not used.
At the turn of the century, a very small number of people knew about the Internet in Russia. The population had a lot of other ways to obtain information: newspapers, radio, television. But mobile operators began to think about the Internet. And since 2000, individual companies have begun testing WAP technology, which has been ingrained in the hearts of subscribers for a long time.
To use the Internet, the client had to pay approximately $15 per month. The “extortions” did not end there. Additionally, for every minute you were online, 10 cents were debited from your balance. The speed was 64 Kb/s. Now such an indicator can only be dreamed of in a nightmare. But any client of a mobile operator who does not use unlimited Internet, limited by traffic, will be able to test similar speeds after the end of the gigabyte package.
In parallel with GSM, CDMA technology developed. The Skylink operator took it up, but he was never able to gather a serious subscriber base.
Mobile operators, based on international experience, understood that it was necessary to develop existing 2G networks. This is how the 2.5G and GPRS standard for Internet access appeared. There was very little time left before high-speed connections entered the market.
Types of phones.
Cellular (mobile) phone is a subscriber terminal operating in a cellular network. In fact, each cell phone is a specialized computer, which is focused primarily on providing (in the coverage area of a home or guest network) voice communication for subscribers, but also supports the exchange of text and multimedia messages, is equipped with a modem and a simplified interface. Modern mobile phones provide voice and data transmission in digital form.
The earlier division of devices into “inexpensive”, “functional”, “business” and “fashion” models is increasingly losing its meaning - business devices acquire the features of image models and entertainment functions; as a result of the use of accessories, inexpensive phones become fashionable, while fashionable ones functionality is growing rapidly.
The miniaturization of handsets, which peaked in 1999–2000, ended for quite objective reasons: the devices have reached an optimal size, their further reduction makes it inconvenient to press buttons, read text on the screen, etc. But the cell phone has become a real object of art: leading designers are involved in developing the appearance of the devices, and owners are given ample opportunities to personalize their devices themselves.
Currently, manufacturers are paying special attention to the functionality of mobile phones, both basic (increasing battery life, improving screens, etc.) and their additional capabilities (digital cameras, voice recorders, MP3 players and other “related” devices are built into the devices). » devices).
Almost all modern devices, with the exception of some models in the lower price range, allow you to download programs. Most devices can run Java applications, and the number of phones using operating systems inherited from PDAs or ported from them is increasing: Symbian, Windows Mobile for Smartphones, etc. Phones with built-in operating systems are called smartphones (from the combination of the English words “smart” and “phone” - “smart phone”).
Today, communicators can also be used as subscriber terminals - pocket computers equipped with a module supporting GSM/GPRS, and sometimes EDGE and third generation standards.
When did 3G appear?
In 2005, mobile phone users were divided into 2 types:
- Those who make calls and send SMS.
- Those who, among other things, are trying to access the Internet.
It’s not hard to guess that life was pretty hard for the latter. Having wired Internet at home with a relatively high speed (up to 10 Mb/s), it was possible to open lightweight sites from a mobile phone, which suddenly became popular: Siza, Tegos, and so on.
Everything changed with the advent of 3rd generation networks. They made it possible to comfortably use the mobile Internet, and also gave a serious impetus to the development of modern smartphones.
The first phone with 3G support was the Sony Ericsson W900i, which did not become particularly popular due to the poor distribution of new generation networks in Russia.
3G in Russia was launched by the Megafon operator in St. Petersburg. This happened in 2007. Due to the fact that the population mostly bought cheap GSM devices, citizens were able to appreciate the advantages of new networks only towards the end of the 2000s, when smartphones appeared on store shelves.
The transition from push-button devices to a smartphone with a touch screen occurred along with the development of 3rd generation networks. The 3.5G standard became intermediate. It is still common today. In small towns and remote areas of large cities, you can see the “H+” icon at the top of the smartphone display. The connection speed in this case does not exceed 21 Mb/s, but allows you to watch videos and download large files.
Exorbitant prices and disgusting quality of 1G
Despite the small demand, the disgusting quality of the connection, which could not compete with “wires,” and the high cost for the consumer, the first generation of cellular mobile communication networks can be considered mass-produced. The analog standard, which became widespread towards the end of the 20th century, assumed the transmission of speech exclusively, because its actual speed did not exceed 1.9 Kbps. In the States it was represented by AMPS technology, and in the European arena NMT and TACS “fought”. Even then, each region chose communication frequencies convenient for itself, so telephone sets for each of them were manufactured individually.
Development of 4G networks in Russia
The most relevant and widespread communication in Russia is 4G. The emergence of LTE networks in 2011 made it possible to achieve Internet speeds of 100 Mb/s. This is quite comparable to the network access provided at home using fiber optics.
In most large cities, the 4G standard appeared only in 2014, and some localities only experienced high speed mobile Internet in the last couple of years. But initially LTE did not allow voice calls. Thus, when a subscriber called, the network automatically dropped to the 3.5G level. Fortunately, the VoLTE standard has emerged to correct this problem.
Today, the development of cellular communications in Russia is at its peak. Each person has 2 SIM cards, and the average cost per minute of conversation is only $0.01.
| Major mobile operators in Russia | |
| Name | Market share |
| MTS | 31% |
| Megaphone | 30% |
| Beeline | 23% |
| Tele 2 | 15% |
| Rest | 1% |
The big and bright future of mobile networks is just around the corner and should arrive very soon. On our interactive map you can track the coverage area from 2G to 4G of the Big Four operators.
Faster, higher, stronger - 3.5G as another transition step
The obvious advantages of third generation networks have not forced mobile operators to update all their equipment to provide their users with appropriate services. High-quality mobile Internet came to the masses with the advent of 3.5G, which made it possible to “communicate” at 14.4 Mbit/s several years ago. This intermediate stage has become the fastest spreading technology in the mobile world - in most countries today it is the one that is relevant. The designated generation of cellular networks is based on the HSPA standard.
When will 5G arrive?
The fifth generation of mobile networks is a stage that can usher in the new decade of the 20s of the 21st century. The next upgrade to the standard is being actively tested around the world. For example, in Sweden, a new record was set for mobile Internet speed – 15 Gb/s. Another advantage of the technology should be a reduction in conversation delay from 0.1 s to 0.01 s.
In Russia, all major mobile operators are trying to implement the technology. Megafon tested 5G before the FIFA World Cup back in 2021, and MTS plans to introduce the technology to the country’s market as early as 2021.
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Before the "modern era" - cable telephone networks
How to transmit information over long distances? Humanity has been asking a similar question since ancient times. The first attempts in this field were shouting and whistling, and then a system of fires, reporting, for example, an enemy attack. Until the 19th century, there were no even more or less significant scientific achievements that could give a worthy answer to the problem. Despite numerous disputes, the official creator of telephone communication in the second half of the century is considered to be Alexander Graham Bell, whose efforts organized a small wired telephone network several hundred meters long. However, the commercial use of its developments began only at the beginning of the 20th century, and five decades later the world saw the first wireless analogues.
