Some developments, innovations or anniversaries are easy to identify as milestones, and others are a bit harder. Nokia’s benchmark, reached earlier today, is one of the former, and it starts our special Milestones in Mobiles addition.

Nokia’s 1.5 Billionth Sale

Yes, that figure is right. Earlier today, Nokia’s backbone line of smartphones, their long-lived S40 series, enjoyed a celebration of the 1.5 billionth unit sold. This figure doesn’t represent total unit sales by Nokia but of their tried-and-true, many-year-long series whose newest model is their mid-price flagship, the Nokia Asha 303.

Whether it was coincidental or the result of a cunning marketing campaign, it was the Asha 303 that hit the brass ring when a 21-year old Brazilian woman purchased the benchmark handset.

What an amazing run Nokia has had with its S40 line that started way back in 1999 with the Nokia 7110. Nokia’s pride in the S40 line is very understandable, and we hope it and the S40 line continues for many a year.

Congratulations, Nokia!

Telecommunications Timeline

Mobile technology sprang from telecommunications advancements from the early 19th century, and who knows where it will end? Whilst the short list below is far from comprehensive, we present some of the more distance-communication benchmarks that have directly or indirectly led to tele-technology on the go as we know it today.

1835: Samuel Morse sent the first telegraph, “What hath God wrought?”
1876: Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call on March 10. Just having spilled items and making mess, he called to his assistant, “Mr. Watson, I want you,” creating the first call to be carried over a wire.
1906: Lee de Forest transmitted the first radio signal to an experimental phone in a car that was idling on a New York street. “How do you like your wireless ride?”
1912: The first commercial call was made in the UK.
1946: The first mobile service via radiotelephones was introduced by AT&T in the US. Users had to manually search for an open frequency and used the P-to-T of walkie talkies; that technology continues today along several venues. (By the way, the first “mobile” phone, one of those radiotelephones, weight 34 kgs or 76 lbs.)
1980s: AT&T hired a consultant’s firm, McKinsey & Co., who predicted a market demand eventually reaching 900,000 before reaching worldwide saturation. Today, over 900,000 mobile phones are sold every day.
1991: The first call made ever on a GSM network.
1998: More mobile phones were purchased around the world than cars and PCs combined.
1999 ortability of users’ phone numbers from network to network came into being, saving millions of people the embarrassment and frustration of dialling the old numbers or forgetting new ones.
Right Now:Mobile phones and smartphones are overtaking laptops and desktop computers for users’ primary Internet access venues. Mobile phone and tablets are developing and using technology only considered science fiction just a few decades ago.