History of Cellphone free essay sample

History of Cell Phones The  history of mobile phones  records the development of interconnection between the public switched telephone systems to radio transceivers. From the earliest days of transmitting speech by radio, connection of the radio system to the telephone network had obvious benefits of eliminating the wires. Early systems used bulky, high power consuming equipment and supported only a few conversations at a time, with required manual set-up of the interconnection. Today cellular technology and microprocessor control systems allow automatic and pervasive use of  mobile phones  for voice and data. The transmission of speech by radio  has a long and varied history going back to  Reginald Fessendens invention and shore-to-ship demonstration of radio telephony, through the  Second World War  with military use of radio telephony links. Mobile telephones for automobiles became available from some telephone companies in the 1950s. Hand-held radio transceivers have been available since the Second World War. Mobile phone history is often divided into  generations  (first,  second,  third  and so on) to mark significant step changes in capabilities as the technology improved over the years. Pioneers of Radio telephony By 1930, telephone customers in the United States could place a call to a passenger on a liner in the Atlantic Ocean. Air time charges were quite high, at $7(1930)/minute (about $92. 50/minute in 2011 dollars). In areas with  Marine VHF radio  and a shore station, it is still possible to arrange a call from the public telephone network to a ship, still using manual call set-up and the services of a human marine radio operator. However it was the 1940s onwards that saw the seeds of technological development which would eventually produce the mobile phone that we know today. Motorola developed a backpacked two-way radio, the  Walkie-Talkie  and a large hand-held two-way radio for the US military. This battery powered Handie-Talkie (HT) was about the size of a mans forearm. In 1946 in St. Louis, the  Mobile Telephone Service  was introduced. Only three radio channels were available, and call set-up required manual operation by a mobile operator. [2]  Although very popular and commercially successful, the service was limited by having only a few voice channels per district. In 1964  Improved Mobile Telephone Service  was introduced with additional channels and more automatic handling of calls to the public switched telephone network. Even the addition of radio channels in three bands was insufficient to meet demand for vehicle-mounted mobile radio systems. In 1969, a patent for a wireless phone using an  acoustic coupler  for incoming calls was issued in  US Patent Number 3,449,750  to  George Sweigert  of Euclid, Ohio on June 10, 1969, but did not include dialing a number for outgoing calls. Cellular concepts In December 1947,  Douglas H. Ring  and  W. Rae Young,  Bell Labs  engineers, proposed  hexagonal cells  for mobile phones in vehicles. [3]  Philip T. Porter, also of Bell Labs, proposed that the cell towers be at the corners of the hexagons rather than the centers and have directional antennas that would transmit/receive in three directions (see picture at right) into three adjacent hexagon cells. [4]  At this stage, the technology to implement these ideas did not exist, nor had the frequencies been allocated. Several years would pass before  Richard H. Frenkiel  and  Joel S. Engel  of Bell Labs developed the electronics to achieve this in the 1960s. In all these early examples, a mobile phone had to stay within the coverage area serviced by one base station throughout the phone call, i. e. there was no continuity of service as the phones moved through several cell areas. The concepts of  frequency reuse  and  handoff, as well as a number of other concepts that formed the basis of modern cell phone technology, were described in the 1970s. In 1970  Amos E. Joel, Jr. , a Bell Labs engineer,[5]  invented an automatic call  handoff system to allow mobile phones to move through several cell areas during a single conversation without interruption. In 1969  Amtrak  equipped commuter trains along the 225-mile  New York-Washington  route with special pay phones that allowed passengers to place telephone calls while the train was moving. The system re-used six frequencies in the 450 MHZ band in nine sites, a precursor of the concept later applied in cellular telephones. [2] In December 1971, ATT submitted a proposal for cellular service to the  Federal Communications Commission  (FCC). After years of hearings, the FCC approved the proposal in 1982 forAdvanced Mobile Phone System  (AMPS) and allocated frequencies in the 824–894  MHz band. 6]  Analog AMPS was eventually superseded by  Digital AMPS  in 1990. A cellular telephone switching plan was described by Fluhr and Nussbaum in 1973,[7]  and a cellular telephone data signaling system was described in 1977 by Hachenburg et al. [8]  In 1979 a  U. S. Patent 4,152,647  was issued to Charles A. Gladden and Martin H. Parelman, of  Las Vegas  for an emergency cellular system for rapid deployment in areas where there was no cellular service. Emergence of commercial mobile phone service Alongside the early developments outlined above, a different technology was also growing in popularity. Two-way mobile radios (known as  mobile rigs) were used in vehicles such as taxicabs, police cruisers, and ambulances, but were not mobile phones, because they were not connected to the telephone network. The first fully automated mobile phone system for vehicles was launched in Sweden in 1960. Named  MTA  (Mobile Telephone system A), it allowed calls to be made and received in the car using a  rotary dial. The car phone could also be paged. Calls from the car were direct dial, whereas incoming calls required an operator to determine which base station the phone was currently at. It was developed by  Sture Lauren  and other engineers at  Televerket  network operator. Ericsson  provided the switchboard while Svenska Radioaktiebolaget (SRA) andMarconi  provided the telephones and base station equipment. MTA phones consisted of  vacuum tubes  and  relays, and weighed 40  kg. In 1962, an upgraded version called  Mobile System B (MTB)  was introduced. This was a  push-button telephone, and used  transistors  and  DTMF  signaling to improve its operational reliability. In 1971 the  MTD  version was launched, opening for several different brands of equipment and gaining commercial success. 9][10]  The network remained open until 1983 and still had 600 customers when it closed. In 1958 development began on a similar system for motorists in the USSR. [11]  The Altay national civil mobile phone service was based on Soviet MRT-1327 standard. The main developers of the Altay system were the Voronezh Science Research Institute of Communications (VNIIS) and the State Specialized Project Institute (GSPI). In 1963 the service started in Moscow, and by 1970 was deployed in 30 cities across the USSR. Versions of the Altay system are still in use today as a  trunking system  in some parts of Russia. In 1959 a private telephone company located in Brewster, Kansas, USA, the ST Telephone Company, (still in business today) with the use of Motorola Radio Telephone equipment and a private tower facility, offered to the public mobile telephone services in that local area of NW Kansas. This system was a direct dial up service through their local switchboard, and was installed in many private vehicles including grain combines, trucks, and automobiles. For some as yet unknown reason, the system, after being placed online and operated for a very brief time period, was shut down. The management of the company was immediately changed, and the fully operable system and related equipment was immediately dismantled in early 1960, not to be seen again. [citation needed] In 1966, Bulgaria presented the pocket mobile automatic phone RAT-0,5 combined with a base station RATZ-10 (RATC-10) on Interorgtechnika-66 international exhibition. One base station, connected to one telephone wire line, could serve up to six customers. [ One of the first successful public commercial mobile phone networks was the  ARP  network in  Finland, launched in 1971. Posthumously, ARP is sometimes viewed as a  zero generation(0G) cellular network, being slightly above previous proprietary and limited coverage networks. Handheld Cell phones [pic] Dr. Martin Cooper of Motorola, made the first US analogue mobile phone call on a larger prototype model in 1973. This is a reenactment in 2007 Prior to 1973, cellular mobile phone technology was limited to phones installed in cars and other vehicles. [12] On April 3, 1973,  Martin Cooper, a  Motorola  researcher and executive, made the first analogue mobile phone call using a heavy prototype model. He called Dr. Joel S. Engel  of  Bell Labs. [13] There was a long race between Motorola and  Bell Labs  to produce the first portable mobile phone. Cooper is the first inventor named on Radio telephone system filed on October 17, 1973 with the  US Patent Office  and later issued as US Patent 3,906,166. [14]  John F. Mitchell, Motorolas chief of portable communication products (and Coopers boss) was also named on the patent. He successfully pushed Motorola to develop wireless communication products that would be small enough to use anywhere and participated in the design of the cellular phone. First generation: Cellular networks Main article:  1G The technological development that distinguished the First Generation of mobile phones from the previous generation was the use of multiple cell sites, and the ability to  transfer calls from one site to the next  as the user travelled between cells during a conversation. The first commercially automated cellular network (the  1G  generation) was launched in Japan by  NTT  in 1979. The initial launch network covered the full metropolitan area of Tokyos over 20 million inhabitants with a cellular network of 23 base stations. Within five years, the NTT network had been expanded to cover the whole population of Japan and became the first nation-wide 1G network. [pic] [pic] Analog  Motorola DynaTAC  8000XAdvanced Mobile Phone Systemmobile phone as of 1983 The next 1G network to launch was the  Nordic Mobile Telephone  (NMT) system in  Denmark,  Finland,  Norway  and  Sweden  in 1981. [17]  NMT was the first mobile phone network to feature international  roaming. The  Swedish  electrical engineer  Osten Makitalo  started work on this vision in 1966, and is considered to be the father of the NMT system, and by some the father of the cellular phone itself. 18][19]  The NMT installations were based on the  Ericsson  AXE  digital exchange nodes. Several other countries also launched 1G networks in the early 1980s including the UK,  Mexico  and  Canada. A two year trial started in 1981 in Baltimore and Washington DC with 150 users and 300 Motorola DynaTAC pre-producti on phones. This took place on a seven tower cellular network that covered the area. The DC area trial turned into a commercial services in about 1983 with fixed cellular car phones also built by Motorola. They later added the 8000X to their Cellular offerings. A similar trial and commercial launch also took place in Chicago by Ameritech in 1983 using the famous first hand-held mobile phone  Motorola DynaTAC. ATs 1971 proposal for  Advanced Mobile Phone System  (AMPS) was approved by the FCC in 1982 and frequencies were allocated in the 824–894  MHz band. [6]Analog AMPS was superseded by  Digital AMPS  in 1990. In 1984,  Bell Labs  developed modern commercial cellular technology (based, to a large extent, on the Gladden, Parelman Patent), which employed multiple, centrally controlled base stations (cell sites), each providing service to a small cell area. The sites were set up so that cells partially overlapped and different base stations operated using the same frequencies with little or no interference. Vodafone  made the UKs first mobile call at a few minutes past midnight on January 1 1985. [20] The technology in these early networks was pushed to the limit to accommodate increasing usage. The base stations and the mobile phones utilized variable transmission power, which allowed range and cell size to vary. As the system expanded and neared capacity, the ability to reduce transmission power allowed new cells to be added, resulting in more, smaller cells and thus more capacity. The evidence of this growth can still be seen in the many older, tall cell site towers with no antennae on the upper parts of their towers. These sites originally created large cells, and so had their antennae mounted atop high towers; the towers were designed so that as the system expanded—and cell sizes shrank—the antennae could be lowered on their original masts to reduce range. Second generation: Digital networks In the  1990s, the second generation (2G) mobile phone systems emerged, primarily using the  GSM  standard. These differed from the previous generation by using digital instead of analog transmission, and also fast  out-of-band  phone-to-network signaling. The rise in mobile phone usage as a result of 2G was explosive and this era also saw the  advent  of  prepaid mobile phones In  1991  the first GSM network (Radiolinja) launched in  Finland. In general the frequencies used by 2G systems in Europe were higher than those in America, though with some overlap. For example, the 900  MHz frequency range was used for both 1G and 2G systems in Europe, so the 1G systems were rapidly closed down to make space for the 2G systems. In America the  IS-54  standard was deployed in the same band as  AMPS  and displaced some of the existing analog channels. Coinciding with the introduction of 2G systems was a trend away from the larger brick phones toward tiny 100–200g hand-held devices. This change was possible not only through technological improvements such as more advanced batteries and more energy-efficient electronics, but also because of the higher density of cell sites to accommodate increasing usage. The latter meant that the average distance transmission from phone to the base station shortened, leading to increased battery life whilst on the move. The second generation introduced a new variant of communication called  SMS  or text messaging. It was initially available only on GSM networks but spread eventually on all digital networks. The first machine-generated SMS message was sent in the UK on 3 December 1992 followed in 1993 by the first person-to-person SMS sent in Finland. The advent of  prepaid services  in the late 1990s soon made SMS the communication method of choice amongst the young, a trend which spread across all ages. 2G also introduced the ability to access media content on mobile phones. In 1998 the first downloadable content sold to mobile phones was the ring tone, launched by Finlands Radiolinja (now Elisa). Advertising on the mobile phone first appeared in Finland when a free daily SMS news headline service was launched in 2000, sponsored by advertising. Mobile payments were trialled in 1998 in Finland and Sweden where a mobile phone was used to pay for a Coca Cola vending machine and car parking. Commercial launches followed in 1999 in Norway. The first commercial payment system to mimic banks and credit cards was launched in the Philippines in 1999 simultaneously by mobile operators Globe and Smart. The first full internet service on mobile phones was introduced by NTT DoCoMo in Japan in 1999. Third generation: High speed IP data networks and mobile broadband As the use of 2G phones became more widespread and people began to utilize mobile phones in their daily lives, it became clear that demand for data services (such as access to the internet) was growing. Furthermore, experience from fixed broadband services showed there would also be an ever increasing demand for greater data speeds. The 2G technology was nowhere near up to the job, so the industry began to work on the next generation of technology known as 3G. The main technological difference that distinguishes 3G technology from 2G technology is the use of  packet switching  rather than  circuit switching  for data transmission. [21]  In addition, the standardization process focused on requirements more than technology (2 Mbit/s maximum data rate indoors, 384 kbit/s outdoors, for example). Inevitably this led to many competing standards with different contenders pushing their own technologies, and the vision of a single unified worldwide standard looked far from reality. The standard 2G  CDMA  networks became 3G compliant with the adoption of Revision A to  EV-DO, which made several additions to the protocol whilst retaining backwards compatibility: ? the introduction of several new forward link data rates that increase the maximum burst rate from 2. 45 Mbit/s to 3. 1 Mbit/s. ? protocols that would decrease connection establishment time. ? the ability for more than one mobile to share the same time slot. ? the introduction of  QoS  flags. All these were put in place to allow for low latency, low bit rate communications such as  VoIP. [22] The first pre-commercial trial network with 3G was launched by NTT DoCoMo in Japan in the Tokyo region in May 2001. NTT DoCoMo launched the first commercial 3G network on October 1, 2001, using the WCDMA technology. In 2002 the first 3G networks on the rival CDMA2000 1xEV-DO technology were launched by SK Telecom and KTF in South Korea, and Monet in the USA. Monet has since gone bankrupt. By the end of 2002, the second WCDMA network was launched in Japan by Vodafone KK (now Softbank). European launches of 3G were in Italy and the UK by the Three/Hutchison group, on WCDMA. 003 saw a further 8 commercial launches of 3G, six more on WCDMA and two more on the EV-DO standard. During the development of  3G  systems,  2. 5G  systems such as  CDMA2000 1x  and  GPRS  were developed as extensions to existing 2G networks. These provide some of the features of 3G without fulfilling the promised high data rates or full range of multimedia services. CDMA2000-1X delivers theoretical maximum data speeds of up to 307 kbit/s. Just beyond these is the  EDGE  system which in theory covers the requirements for  3G  system, but is so narrowly above these that any practical system would be sure to fall short. The high connection speeds of 3G technology enabled a transformation in the industry: for the first time, media streaming of radio (and even television) content to 3G handsets became possible  [1], with companies such as  RealNetworks  [2]  and  Disney  [3]  among the early pioneers in this type of offering. In the mid 2000s an evolution of 3G technology begun to be implemented, namely  High-Speed Downlink Packet Access  (HSDPA). It is an enhanced  3G  (third generation)  mobile telephony  communications protocol  in the  High-Speed Packet Access  (HSPA) family, also coined 3. G, 3G+ or turbo 3G, which allows networks based on  Universal Mobile Telecommunications System  (UMTS) to have higher data transfer speeds and capacity. Current HSDPA deployments support down-link speeds of 1. 8, 3. 6, 7. 2 and 14. 0  Mbit/s. Further speed increases are available with  HSPA+, which provides speeds of up to 42 Mbit/s downlink and 84 Mbit/s with Release 9 o f the 3GPP standards. By the end of 2007 there were 295 million subscribers on 3G networks worldwide, which reflected 9% of the total worldwide subscriber base. About two thirds of these were on the WCDMA standard and one third on the EV-DO standard. The 3G telecoms services generated over 120 Billion dollars of revenues during 2007 and at many markets the majority of new phones activated were 3G phones. In Japan and South Korea the market no longer supplies phones of the second generation. Although mobile phones had long had the ability to access data networks such as the  Internet, it was not until the widespread availability of good quality  3G  coverage in the mid 2000s that specialized devices appeared to access the  mobile internet. The first such devices, known as dongles, plugged directly into a computer through the  USB  port. Another new class of device appeared subsequently, the so-called compact wireless router such as the  Novatel  MiFi, which makes 3G internet connectivity available to multiple computers simultaneously over  Wi-Fi, rather than just to a single computer via a USB plug-in. Such devices became especially popular for use with  laptop  computers due to the added portability they bestow. Consequently, some computer manufacturers started to embed the mobile data function directly into the laptop so a dongle or MiFi wasnt needed. Instead, the  SIM card  could be inserted directly into the device itself to access the mobile data services. Such 3G-capable laptops became commonly known as netbooks. Other types of data-aware devices followed in the netbooks footsteps. By the beginning of 2010, E-readers, such as the  Amazon  Kindle  and the  Nook  from  Barnes Noble, had already become available with embedded wireless internet, and  Apple Computer  had announced plans for embedded wireless internet on its  iPad  tablet devices beginning that Fall. Fourth generation: All-IP networks By 2009, it had become clear that, at some point, 3G networks would be overwhelmed by the growth of bandwidth-intensive applications like streaming media. Consequently, the industry began looking to data-optimized 4th-generation technologies, with the promise of speed improvements up to 10-fold over existing 3G technologies. The first two commercially available technologies billed as 4G were the  WiMAX  standard (offered in the U. S. by  Sprint) and the  LTE  standard, first offered in Scandinavia by  TeliaSonera. One of the main ways in which 4G differed technologically from 3G was in its elimination of  circuit switching, instead employing an all-IP network. Thus, 4G ushered in a treatment of voice calls just like any other type of streaming audio media, utilizing packet switching over  internet,  LAN  or  WAN  networks via  VoIP. Mobile market of India [pic] India’s mobile phone industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. Mobile phones in India were formally launched in august 1995. For the first few years after the advent of mobile phones, monthly subscriptions were added to the tune of 0. 05 to 0. 1 million in India. Subsequently the subscriber base stood at 10. 5 million in December 2002. The Indian mobile phone industry has entered a phase of boom due to many proactive measures taken by various licensors and regulators. Two Million mobiles subscribers were added every month in India from 2003 to 2005. The two other countries with more mobile phones then India are USA and China. The main technologies followed by India for mobile communication are global GSM and CDMA. GSM is the global system for mobile communication and CDMA is based on code division multiple access. Mobile tariffs are very low in India. Thirty two million mobile handsets were sold in India in the year 2005. Indian ring tones primarily comprise of music of Indian origin like Indian film songs and bhajans. Mobile prices change from day to day. Total revenue generated by the telecom service sector in 2004-2005 was 86,720 crore in India. This meant an increase of revenue by 21% from the previous year. Airtel covers 21. 45 of subscriber base in India. Reliance is the second largest with a subscription controlling a base of 20. 3%. BSNL follows closely at 18. 6% and Hutch was 14. 7% according to a June 2005 survey. First mobile telephone service on non-commercial basis started in India on 48th Independence Day at country’s capital Delhi. The first cellular call was made in India on July 31st, 1995 over  Modi Telstra’s MobileNet GSM network of Kolkata. Later mobile telephone services are divided into multiple zones known as circles. Competition has caused prices to drop and calls across India are one of the cheapest in the world. Most of operator follows GSM mobile system operate under 900MHz bandwidth few recent players started operating under 1800MHz bandwidth. CDMA operators operate under 800Mhz band, they are first to introduce EVDO based high speed wireless data services via USB dongle. In spite of this huge growth Indian telecom sector is hit by severe spectrum crunch, corruption by India Govt. officials and financial troubles. In 2008, India entered the 3G arena with the launch of 3G enabled Mobile and Data services by Government owned MTNL and BSNL. Later from November 2010 private operator’s started to launch their services. India is one of the fastest growing  economies  all over the world and a live example which depicts the development is the growth of the  telecommunication industry  in India, especially the in  the field  of  mobile communication. Mobile  phones in  India were formally launched in august 1995. After the advent of these  phones in  the market many  companies  have forayed into this field. BSNL, Airtel, Vodafone, and  Idea Cellular  are some of the companies  which have made a mark in this field. The main technologies followed by India for  mobile communication  are global GSM and CDMA. GSM is the global system for  mobile communication  and CDMA is based on code division multiple access. Mobile tariffs are very low in India. There has been a significant increase in the services provided, especially in the rural areas. The rates  of mobile phones  and the tariffs are very low that almost every family in India can afford town a mobile phone. The government of India has played a very important role in achieving success in this area by adopting policies which help the families in the rural areas own a mobile phone. This type of policies encourages overall development of country rather concentrating on a single path. The mobile subscriber’s base in India is said to have increased by 50% during March 2009. It has increased by 130 million and rose up to 391. 8million. It is expected that the mobile subscriptions in India will rise up to half a billion. These statistics show the development of the  telecommunication industry  which in turn shows   development of India. Handset Maker Companies of India 1. X Electron 2. CAPLIGHT 3. Airnet 4. Ajanta Mobile 5. Anconn Mobile 6. Airphone 7. [AROMA Mobiles] 8. [[ . com Asiatelco] 9. BlackBerry 10. BLEU 11. Beetel 12. BPL Group 13. Byond tech 14. Colors mobile 15. celkon 16. Daya 17. Dell 18. Digibee Mobiles 19. eTouch 20. Fujezone 21. Fly 22. Fortune 23. GEEPEE Mobiles 24. gfone 25. G-Five 26. Haier 27. Hansum Mobiles 28. Hi-Tech 29. HTC 30. ICube 31. Intex 32. Ion 33. iNQ 34. Karbonn Mobiles 5. Lava Mobiles 36. Lemon 37. Lexus 38. LG 39. Logitec 40. Magicon 41. Maxwood Mobiles 42. Maxx 43. Melbon 44. Micromax Mobile 45. Motorola 46. Movil 47. Munoth Mobiles 48. Nokia- { employee-amit dubey_job location Mumbai } 49. Nelson 50. Olive 51. Onida 52. Orion Mobiles 53. Orpat 54. pagaria 55. Philips 56. Pride Mobiles 57. Philiray 58. Kuantum 59. Quba Mobile 60. Rage 61. Ray 62. Swissvoice India 63. SAGEM 64. Samsung 65. San Mobile 66. Sansui 67. Siemens 68. Simoco 69. Sony Ericsson 70. Spice Telecom 71. Technotouch 72. T-Series 73. Ultra Mobile 74. UNITEL 75. UNIX Mobiles 76. Usha-Lexus 77. Vodafone Essar 78. Videocon 79. Voice 80. VOX 81. Winncom 82. Xcite 83. Zen Mobiles 84. Rk mobile 85. ViP Mobile 86. Rahul 87. CAPLIGHT 88. Alcatel 89. Spice 90. MVL 91. Nova mobiles  [1] 92. Mobell 93. Akai mobiles The Indian mobile industry is the fastest growing in the world and India continues to add more mobile connections every month than any other country in the world. The telecom boom in the country provides great opportunity to handset manufacturers and the hottest segment for these manufacturers is the entry level segment. VoiceData’s 16th annual survey ‘VD 100? overed all the mobile handset companies doing business in India across categories like feature phones, multimedia phones, enterprise phones and smartphones. Both multi-national and Indian mobile phone firms were surveyed for this report. Here are some interesting findings from the report. ? Nokia remained the #1 player in handset business and grew at a dismal 0. 2%. It faced tough compe tition in the entry level segments to home grown handset makers like Micromax, Karbonn and Spice whereas it’s high-end phones faced a tough competition from brands like Samsung, BlackBerry and HTC. Nokia enjoys a market share of 39. %. ? Samsung captured 17. 2% of market share and grew by 21. 7%. Samsung’s success can be attributed to its rich product portfolio on various popular operating systems like Windows, Android and Bada. ? Micromax captured #3 slot among VD100 Top 10 mobile handset brands for FY2010-11. The company grew 43% during the fiscal and grabbed a market share of 6. 9%. ? Research in Motion’s brand BlackBerry ranked among top 5 mobile phone brands in India. Positioning itself at #4, the Blackberry grew by 61. 2%. Its entry level smartphone saw more sales in the fourth quarter than all other three quarters put together. This shows that smartphones offered at an economical price   can storm the feature phone market. ? HTC saw a growth of 99%, the highest, among all the brands surveyed by VoiceData, this growth is driven almost entirely by its Android range. ? As the 3G services extend nationwide, the 3G phones would see a much bigger traction triggering entry of more 3G enabled phones at affordable prices. ? The fixed phone market shrunk by over a quarter. IDC India has published a report on growth of mobile sales in India (for 2009) and here are some of the relevant data points to track: The growth has more or less flat [owing to low sales figure in Q1] – in total, 101. 54 million units of sales were registered. ? Local manufacturers* have grabbed 17. 5% market share [from 0. 9%, a year back] ? Only 5 local manufacturers in 2008 and the number stands at 28 now! ? Nokia market share in India  fell from 56. 2% share in 2008 to 54. 1% in 2009. ? Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd’s share ros e marginally to 9. 7% from 9. 5%. ? LG’s share dropped from 7. 2% to 6. 4%, ? Of the local manufacturers, Micromax leads the race and holds a market share stands of 4. %. Like any market research, take this with a pinch of salt [for instance, Nokia  has  expressed reservations about the research, since IDC didn’t take into account its production facility in Chennai, which ships 50% of the manufactured mobile to India]. Nevertheless, this is an interesting result and rise of local companies shows that there is a value in local IP [eat this: Micromax Q5 phone is just like Blackberry/E71/72 with a far lesser price which Blackberrys of the world cannot even match]. What’s your take on the rise of Indian local mobile manufacturers? Top 5 Local manufacturers – Micromax, Karbonn Mobiles, Spice Mobiles Ltd, Videocon Industries Ltd and Lava International Ltd. India is one of the fastest growing telecom networks in the world. This is due to its high population and fast rate of growth. Rural India is still inadequate in terms of connectivity for efficient telecommunication. BSNL is one of the main public sector telecommunication companies in India. It has been rated 7th largest in the world. Hutch, BPL, MTNL, Bharti Telecom, Reliance and Tata Indicom are the other active telecommunication operators in India. Top Cell Phone Manufacturers Nokia Samsung LG Sony Ericson