Ten Years of GSM in Australia

In April 1993 when Australia's Telstra launched its GSM network there were just 635,000 analogue mobiles in Australia, and less than 4% of people had one. Today there are 14 million mobile phones in the country and around 70% of people have one.

Ten years ago only voice calls were offered over the expensive, bulky phones commonly referred to as 'bricks' that weighed more than half a kilogram. Telstra Technology Group Managing Director, Doug Campbell, said Telstra was proud of its first 10 years in digital mobile telephony, and excited about the range of services on the horizon for mobile customers.

Without the digital network we would not be able to do simple things we take for granted, like send SMS, or use new mobile data services such Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) which allows people to send each other photos or video images, he said.

Mr Campbell said Telstra was continuing to improve its digital mobile networks with a major program of CDMA coverage expansion to be carried out over the next 18 months.

There are now 6.3 million mobile services operating across Telstra's two digital networks compared to 100,000 in 1995.

The GSM digital network was officially switched-on on 27 April 1993, providing coverage to 53% of the population. In 1995 the GSM network had 100,000 customers, in 1996 that had risen to 300,000 and at the beginning of 2003 the company had over 5.4 million on the GSM network alone.

The CDMA digital network was launched in September 1999. The CDMA network covers more than twice the area of the GSM network and will reach more than 98% of Australia's population by mid-2004. As at March 2003 there were 700,000 customers using Telstra's CDMA network. In conjunction with the Federal Government Telstra is rolling out coverage to a range of communities with populations in excess of 300 and a number of regional highways.

History of Mobile Phones in Australia

1981
In August Telecom launched the first public automatic mobile phone systemPAMTS in Melbourne (Sydney followed in November). Abbreviated to MTS orjust 007 (after the telephone number prefix used) this service was fullyautomatic but not cellular.

The boot-mounted radios had a handset and cradle in the cabin and cost$4,990 to buy or $1,000 pa to lease. Connection fee was $350 and annualaccess fee was $800.

1987
Telecom launched Australia's first cellular network based on the USAAMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone System) - or analogue standard.

Car mounted and transportable (b! ag! phones) were sold and for thefirst time (bulky) hand held phones could be used - they sold for $4250.

AMPS first launched in Sydney in February and in Melbourne in May. Itwas extended into the other capitals and major cities then into countryareas.

1989
100,000th AMPS service connected. (June)

1992

• Optus licensed as carrier (January)
• Optus starts to resell AMPS service (June)
• The 500,000th AMPS connection was made (October)
• Vodafone licensed as carrier (December)

1993

• Telstra launched new digital (GSM) network
• Optus launched GSM (May)
• Vodafone launched its GSM digital network (October).
• MTS Phone System for mobiles phased out.

1994
The one-millionth analogue connection network was made (early March)

1995
By July there were 300,000 connections on the now three digital GSMnetworks and the two millionth AMPS connection was made.

1996
In June the one millionth GSM connection was made and the AMPS networkconnections had peaked at 2.6 million customers.

1998

• Telstra MobileNet customers (both AMPS and GSM) exceed three million
• Telstra announced plans to build a new mobile network to replace the AMPS Analogue network, which will be phased out due to government regulation
• The new network will be based on CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) technology

1999

• Telstra CDMA network launch (September)
• Majority of the AMPS networks closes (31st December)

2000

• Hutchison launches CDMA in Sydney and Melbourne (March)
• OneTel launches GSM 1800 (June)
• AMPS fully closed (September)

2001

• OneTel GSM 1800 closes (June)
• Number of mobiles in Australia exceeds the number of wired access lines 10.7 million (February)
• Telstra commercially launches GPRS data network across GSM
• Mobile number portability (September)

2002

• The one billionth mobile service in the world connected (April)
• The 12 millionth Australian mobile service connected (March)

2003
Telstra launches Telstra Mobile Loop - based on its 3G network (March)"

Posted to the site on 28th April 2003