Twenty Years Ago - First Mobiles Used in Australia
Last Friday, 20 years ago - the first mobile phones were introduced in Australia. At 10.42am on February 23, 1987, the then Minister for Communications, Michael Duffy, received the first official call using an analogue mobile phone. They were big and bulky, weighing more than half a kilogram. They were disparagingly dubbed "bricks", offered voice only services and cost more than $4000 each.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association, Chris Althaus, said the convergence of telecommunications, media and information technology was now mainstream in the form of 3G services offered by the industry.
"The latest technology provides access across multi-media functions such as the internet, music, video, email, SMS, instant messaging, photography, mobile office, mobile TV as well as the all-important voice telephony functions," he said.
"3G is providing consumers with the latest mobile telecommunications functionality and further opportunities for business to boost productivity by allowing streamlined business processes, enhanced customer service and increased efficiency," he said.
Mr Althaus said the growth of mobile phones had been spectacular over the past two decades and the mobile telecommunications industry had a greater impact on the Australian economy than the free-to-air television industry and the newspaper printing and publishing industry.
"Behind the success of our industry, there are people, and mobile phone telephony has had a profound impact on their everyday lives - their lifestyle, their productivity and the ways they interact with their family, friends and their workplaces," he said.
Industry facts:
Today there are 19.76 million mobile phone services in Australia. A decade and a half ago there were 635,000 mobile phones in Australia.
Today mobile services in operation as a proportion of the Australian population is 96%. Fifteen years ago fewer than 4% of people had one.
In the 12 months to June 30, 2006, there were 10.2 billion text messages sent in Australia. In 1987 there were none. Six years ago when text messaging started there were only 642 million sent in 2000-01."
Posted to the site on 26th February 2007