Digital Media

Nokia is known today as the largest manufacturer of mobile phones, having about 40 percent of the world market share in the second quarter of 2008. This company is even the reason why Finland is a prosperous country in which it is accounted for about 30 percent of the nation’s market capitalization. But Nokia had a really humble beginning-it all started in 1865.

Nokia’s Humble Beginning

In 1895, Fredrik Idestam established a wood-pulp mill, which is now known as the Nokia Corporation. It was first based in the south western Finland town called Tampere but was later relocated to Nokia town so that the company can use the Nokianvirta river. This river is believed to have better hydropower production. The river is where the company’s name, Nokia, originated.

Meanwhile, at the beginning of the 20th century, Finnish Rubber Works began establishing its factories. This company acquired the Nokia Wood Mills and also acquired a company producing telegraph and telephone cables, the Finish Cable Works. The merging of these three companies in 1967 led to the creation of the Nokia Corporation.

The new company tried producing many products like papers, bicycle, car tires, personal computers, footwear, communication cables, electricity generation machineries, televisions, aluminium, capacitors, and a lot more.

Shift to Mobile Communication Tools

Nokia started producing military as well as commercial mobile radio communications technology in the 1960s. It was in 1964 when the company started to create VHF-radio with Salora Oy. The two companies started to develop mobile phones for the NMT network standard. In 1982, they introduced their first car phone called the Mobira Senator, which weighted 9.8 kg.

In 1984, the merging with Salora Oy made the company to create its telecommunication branch named Nokia-Mobira Oy. In the same year, the company also launched the Mobira Talkman, the world’s first transportable phone.

Nokia introduced one of the world’s first handheld phones in 1987 and this was called Mobira Cityman 900. During those days, the Cityman is one of the most light-weight phones having only about 800 g. But its tag price is approximately 4,500 Euros. Although that was very expensive, Cityman was still considered a success.

The GSM Involvement

In 1988, Nokia Mobile Phone emerged from the Nokia Mobira Oy. After three years, the first Global Systems for Mobile Communications or GSM phone was introduced.

In 1992, the company decided to focus more on the telecommunications business. In the same year, Nokia launched its first GSM handset, which is the Nokia 1011. It was in 1994 that the Nokia tune was launched. It was the Nokia 2100 that featured this famous classic phone tune.

The success of Nokia continued until the world’s first satellite call was made in 1994 using a Nokia mobile phone. And in 1997, Nokia introduced a classic game highly associated with the company-Snake.

Finally, in 1998, Nokia mobile phones became the world’s leader. After a year, the company moved to further innovation with its launching of the first WAP handset in the world, the Nokia 7110.

Recent Success of Nokia

Nokia mobile phones continue to be one of the best and most innovative in the world. This was proven in 2002 with the company’s launching of Nokia 6650, its first 3G phone. The company even had its billion sales when it was able to sell billion units of Nokia 1100.

Nokia Corporation is also recognized in the world today as the fifth most valued brand.

From 1865 until today, Nokia continues to create mark on the mobile phone industry. Innovation is always at the top of this company and its history proved its fearless business moves that led it to its massive success.

Welcome to the Internet Revolution, the Age of Technology, and the Era of Telecommunications. Telecommunications (tele-translated from the Greek to mean “distant” and Latin communicare- to participate) is defined as the transmission of information over a line of communication, like that of a telephone, which is carried over a long distance. It may or may not use a modem. The information may be communicated through voice, text, images, or even video via any product that will work, like a fax machine. Any product that enables telecommunication is classified as a Telecom Product.

Since Alexander Graham Bell invented his “electrical speech machine” (now known as the telephone) back in 1876, the telecommunications industry has evolved to include a wide array of products for both business and personal use. Below you will find several different types of telecom products and brief explanations of their different usage.

We’ll begin our mission with the originator- the telephone. Since it’s invention, the device has gotten smaller, portable, and even wireless. Accessories such as answering machines can attach to your phone or phone line for friends, family and/or clients and customers to leave you an important message when you’re unavailable to take a call. All-in-one answering machine/telephone contraptions have gained substantial popularity in recent years as the price dropped with the advancement of technology. Multi-line telephones for busy offices are also becoming more affordable for those who didn’t have the extra funding for such a telecommunications device.

Facsimile machines, also known as “fax” machines for short, take text or images from a piece of paper and transfer the data to another fax machine anywhere in the world via telephone lines. Much like the recent popularity of answering machine/telephone combinations and other telecommunication devices, technology has advanced to bring the price and size down and the convenience of all-in-one equipment for the average consumer. Phone/fax/copy/printer combinations are in a growing number of households across the country and around the globe.

If you have your own business that requires a combination of telecom products, it might be in your best interest to invest in a Voice/Data Line Sharing Device. This port-switching mechanism will allow you to run telephones, fax machines, modems, answering machines, climate control, security monitoring, credit card terminals and poll cash registers without needing a separate line for each.

Finally two-way radios, commonly referred to as “Walkie-Talkies”, are yet another device that falls into the category of telecom products. And yes, just like all of the other products we’ve covered, the price and size have dropped while the technology expanded. In fact, there are two-way radios that can communicate with each other from as far away as 6 miles depending on the area and terrain. Multiple units that run on the same frequency work quite well for large fleets after they are cloned for synchronization. LCD screens make for some easy programming by all.

The telecommunications revolution the merging of voice, video and other data transmission and the proliferation of new telecommunications products and services has been one of America’s leading technological and economic success stories. At bottom, the key reason is that our scientists, engineers and businesses have developed and introduced telecommunications technologies at a faster pace than anywhere else in the world.

Public policies that have promoted competition have been critical to this result. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the case of telephone services, where through the efforts over two decades of the Justice Department and Judge Harold Greene, and the work of the FCC, competition has become the central organizing principle of the industry.

Until the Department sued and eventually broke up AT&T, that company had a monopoly over this nation’s telephone market. It was a regulated monopoly, to be sure. But it was also one that thwarted competition and innovation. New companies like MCI that wanted to provide long-distance service could not do so because AT&T’s local operating companies refused to provide interconnections to their local loops. Similarly, other manufacturers of telephone equipment wanted to sell equally, if not more, innovative products but were frustrated by AT&T from doing so because of the telephone company’s incentives and ability, through its monopoly control of the local loop, to buy such equipment only from its wholly owned subsidiary. Western Electric.

These practices were ended when the Department of Justice, led by my antitrust law professor in law school, William Baxter, obtained a consent decree in 1982. A Modification of Final Judgment (MFJ) has since been administered with remarkable energy and wisdom by Judge Greene, to whom this nation owes enormous gratitude.

By unleashing competition in various segments of the telephone industry, the MFJ has delivered the benefits that competition in other markets routinely guarantees: innovation, better products and services, greater efficiency, and lower prices. Consider that since the MFJ:

Interstate long-distance prices for the average residential customer in real terms (adjusted for inflation) have fallen by more than 50 percent without compromising universal service;

There has been a virtual explosion in the types of telephones and services that consumers can choose from;

Competition has stimulated the development of hundreds of innovative voice and data services (such as call waiting and voice mail);

Spurred by smaller carriers and MCI and Sprint, the three largest long-distance providers (including AT&T) now have laid fiber optic cable throughout much of the country and thus have already built significant portions of the backbone for the Nil; and

Competition in the telephone equipment market has opened whole new markets and spawned the development and sale of new products.

In short, the MFJ has enabled the United States to maintain its technological leadership in telecommunications. Nations that have stuck to the old monopoly model of telephone services have fallen behind. That is why many are now trying to emulate us, rather than the other way around.