Importance Of Telecommunication Services

CHAPTER 1

MOBILE PHONE SERVICES: AN INTRODUCTION

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Services sector plays an important role in the life of every person. People make use of a vast variety of services ranging from most sophisticated Information Technology (IT) to unorganized services like domestic help and rickshaw pullers. Services make a significant contribution to the quality of life of people. Communication has been one of the most important aspects of the growth of human society. Telecommunication services are the most sophisticated and also an essential form of communication for people from every section of society. In this fast paced world, the provision of a perfect telecommunication infrastructure is the

One of the first means of long distance communication was the use of smoke signals. In ancient times, this was a very effective means of communication in a smaller, more rural world. Other older methods of communication included the use of sound by such things as drums and horns. Flags, lamps and special towers were means of optical / visual communication. Later, the emergence of civilization and industrial society witnessed various inventions in communication viz. telegraph, radio, television, telephone and eventually the internet. The conventional wire line telephone was invented independently by Alexander Bell Graham and Elish Gray in 1876. The commercial telephone services were set up in 1878 and 1879 on both sides of the Atlantic in the cities of New Haven and London. A landmark development in telecommunication was achieved when cellular technology was invented in AT & T’s Bell Laboratories in late 1960s. Less than two years later cellular / mobile services were launched in the United States using AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone Services) technology. The first cellular phone for commercial use was approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1983. The phone, a Motorola Dyna TAC 8000X weighed 2 pounds, offered just half an hour of talk time for every recharging and sold for $ 3995. There are mainly two types of services provided by the telecom service providers namely: Fixed/Land Line Services and Cellular Services. Fixed/Wireline Services is a physical connection between two telecommunication devices. It refers to standard telephone and data communication system that use in-ground and telephone pole cables in contrast to wireless cellular services. Fixed /wire line service in India is primarily run by BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited), MTNL (Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd.) and some private sector players like Reliance, Airtel and Tata Indicom. With the development of mobile phone, the