Science Fair Project Encyclopedia A mobile phone is a device
which behaves as a normal telephone whilst being able to move
over a wide area (cf. cordless phone which acts as a telephone
only within a limited range). Mobile phones allow connections to
be made to the telephone network, normally by directly dialling
the other party's number on an inbuilt keypad. Most current
mobile phones use a combination of radio wave transmission and
conventional telephone circuit switching, though packet
switching is already in use for some parts of the mobile phone
network, especially for services such as internet access and
WAP. Mobile phone manufacturers include Alcatel, Audiovox,
Kyocera (formerly the handset division of Qualcomm), LG,
Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic (Matsushita Electric), Philips,
Samsung, Sagem, Sanyo, Siemens, SK Teletech and Sony Ericsson.
Mobile phones have a long and varied history that stretches back
to the early 1970s. Due to their low establishment costs and
rapid deployment, mobile phone networks ha