Technologies in cellular: the new generation: cell phones transform as the years pass, and the latest will soon have TV-viewing capability.

• Author: Colby, Kent L.

GENERATIONS

They have been walking from the beginning, through the foggy sponges of lowland forests, under umbrella leaves, in the shattered rain of ocean beaches, through the tinder of ashpits, the thickets of cities, along washes and ravines and the dust of dry creek beds.

--Pattiann Rogers, from the book "Generations" (2004, Penguin Books)

Life before cell phones is a faded memory, if a memory at all for most Alaskans. There was a time when they were big, bulky, expensive and a novelty.

Early cell phones, in this part of the world, almost all packed the Motorola trademark. They were analog and these dinosaurs radiated a full 3 watts of power. If there was a cell within range, they could talk to it. Fishing boats along the coastline within a few miles of the limited number of cells, and businesses in cities that hosted a cell, were the first to crawl out of the tar pits and embrace the new technology. Bulky interfaces allowed dial-up connections to the embryonic Internet. But, the coverage was spotty, cellular even. Like that meteor that changed the course of the world millennia ago, the cell phone has changed the way we live our lives, do business and just keep in touch.

THE BIG BANG

When the great ice mountain split its continent and became two, they were walking. When smoke from the burning plains blinded the western seas, they were walking. They walked by dead reckoning on steel, on ropes, over swales and fens, on pearls.

--Pattiann Rogers, from "Generations"

The name cellular may be a bit passe today, as the name gives way to simply "cell" or "wireless." The Federal Communications Commission describes the concept of cellular service as: "Licensees use cellular radiotelephone service (commonly referred to as cellular) spectrum to provide a mobile telecommunications service for hire to the general public using cellular systems." Cellular telephone services were largely adopted in the early 1980s. The subsequent worldwide ringing and the technology that supports it exploded beyond the FCC's earliest predictions, forcing a revisit to those rules just more than two years ago. In the rulemaking, the commission acknowledges the technologies used by carriers to provide cellular service have changed radically. New technology makes it possible for cellular service providers to increase the capacity of their systems; to offer better quality service, advanced calling features, enhanced reliability and privacy; and to compete increasingly with the wireline telephone network.

Early entries into the world of cellular built their names around the technology and as new players evolved, the naming is no longer "cell"-based. Only a few companies hold claim to the convention built around cellular. The expanding technology...