Smart phone: 30 years in the making-PriceAngels

top 10 cell phones have become such ubiquitous tools for work and personal business that it’s easy to take them for granted, even only a few years after they first appeared. And they have revolutionized how public-sector agencies do business. But they didn’t just spring from Steve Jobs’ mind — the technology behind them can be traced back to GCN’s beginnings, and further, into government research projects. Here’s a brief look at what’s behind a smart phone’s key components.

The first analog cellular system, now known as 1G, was introduced in 1978. Cell phone use took off in the 1990s with 2G networks. 3G (mobile broadband) appeared in 2001, and by 2011 was giving way to 4G (WiMax and lTE), which uses IP packet switching.

The first multitouch device was created at the University of Toronto in 1982. The HP 150, among the first touch-screen computers, appeared the next year. Improvements over the years came with the Apple Newton (1993), Sony’s SmartSkin (2002) and other technologies. Touch screens took a leap forward in 2007 with the first iPhone. For the surface, many phones use Gorilla Glass.Once the province of PCs, workstations and supercomputers, dynamic random access memory has been showing up in larger doses as smart phones get more sophisticated. According to one study, in 2011, no phone had more than 800M of DRAM; today, 4G, 8G and even 16G are becoming common.

In late June, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed an emergency petition with state regulators to stop Verizon from replacing copper lines with alternatives in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. He says seasonal residents who find their Latest Smartphones lines don’t work at their summer homes are steered by Verizon to its Voice Link wireless product. Only if the customer forcefully refuses will Verizon restore the copper phone line, he says. Verizon says Voice Link is just an option available to customers.fdf2Fsd2d

In New Jersey, state regulators are talking to Verizon about Mantoloking but haven’t approved the landline-to-wireless switch that Verizon has already started. It could, at least in theory, deny Verizon’s application and force it to rewire copper phone lines back into the town.In Washington, the Federal Communications Commission is looking at an application from the country’s largest landline phone company, AT&T Inc. AT&T isn’t dealing with storm damage, so it has the leisure of taking a longer view. It wants to explore what a future without phone lines will look like by starting trials in yet-to-be-decided areas.

At Public Knowledge, Feld agrees with AT&T’s deliberative approach. Among the issues that need to be looked at, he says, is whether consumer protections that apply to landline phone service should apply to whatever replaces it. For instance, if a consumer misses a monthly payment, Buy Cell Phones companies are prohibited from cutting landline phone service right away.

Sean Lev, the FCC’s general counsel, said in a blog post that “we should do everything we can to speed the way while protecting consumers, competition, and public safety.” But he also points out that most phone companies aren’t set to retire their landline equipment immediately. The equipment has been bought and paid for, and there’s no real incentive to shut down a working network. He thinks phone companies will continue to use landlines for five to 10 years, suggesting that regulators have some time to figure out how to tackle the issue.