Please send any suggestions for improvements to this GSM Historic Centre, feedback on the book “Inside a Mobile Revolution – Political History of GSM” or if you have any original significant documents relevant to the history of GSM that you would be happy to share with others by adding here then please contact:
THE GSM HISTORIC CENTRE:
1. A public record of Europe's most successful high technology project - an important event in Europe's industrial, social and political history:
Inside a Mobile Revolution - A Political History of GSM
Eveyone knows how the PC and World Wide Web revolutions came about, with over 2.5 and 1.3 billion users respectively in 2010. But few people have known how the mobile revolution, ignited by GSM, came about. Yet there are over 4 billion mobile users – a phenominal outcome that can be traced back to the GSM MoU signed in Copenhagen in September 1987.
Finally, in a personal first hand account, the curtain is pulled back on how GSM happened and how it came to create a global mobile revolution.
Other Web sites (and books) with very important contributions to GSM and mobile phone history
2. Ericsson have an excellent company history that covers in detail the GSM story through the eyes of Ericsson who played a key technical leadership role for the GSM narrowband TDMA technology:
http://www.ericssonhistory.com/templates/Ericsson/EricssonBook/Article.aspx?id=3994&epslanguage=EN
3. Fred Hillebrandt has done a great job over a number of years to document the history of GSM from a technical standardisation perspective. The first book he edited was published in 2002 by John Wiley and called:
GSM and UMTS The Creation of Global Mobile Communications.
The book has contributions from Thomas Haug, Philippe Dupuis, Mike Walker, Bernard Mallinder amongst others.
4. In 2010 Fred edited another important historical record, also published by Wiley, called Short Message Service (SMS) The Creation of Person Global Text Messaging.
The book tracks the history of SMS following closely the GSM committee input paper trail.
5. This leads me onto Fred's third endeavour and that is a new Web site called GSM History where he has put on line a fantastic back collection of GSM Committee paper and these can be accessed at:
http://www.gsm-history.org/19.html
His archived technical papers include the very important historical document "The Madeira decision on the basic parameters of the GSM (GSM/46/87)".
6. Multimedia on the Move
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/spectrumauctions/documents/multimedia/index.htm
This is the DTI seminal document that led to the first 3G auction and was intended to trigger a new 3rd generation of mobile technology that would eventually replace GSM.
7. Other important Archive official records available on-line from this GSM Historic Centre:
i) The text of the Quadripartite Ministers declaration in Bonn in May 1987 that resolved the choice of technology for GSM and instructed officials to draw up the GSM MOU
Quadrapartite Ministers Declaration in Bonn 1987
ii) The text of the original GSM MoU signed in Copenhagen in September 1987
iii) The Annex to the original GSM MoU signed in Copenhagen in September 1987 - which contains the network implementation phases and related milestones
Annext to GSM MOU Network Implementation Phases
iv) The Tripartite digital cellular radio agreement between Germany, France and Italy signed in Nice on the 20th June 1985
v) The IPR conditions attached as an annex to the Tripartite digital cellular radio agreement between Germany, France and Italy signed in Nice on the 20th June 1985
These conditions led directly to the huge dispute that took place later in the European Telecommunications Standards Institute on the rules governing terms of use of essential patents in public standards.