By David
In the past decade or so, much has changed in regard to cell phones and wireless technology. New inventions and new advancements have enabled our portable phones to get much smaller and allowed us to do things wirelessly that we before would have thought impossible.
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Cell phones
Probably the most obvious advancement in the area of cell wireless technology is the handheld unit itself. When cell phones first became available, they were large brick like devices that were somewhat less reliable than what we have today, and believe it or not, could only be used to make phone calls. Thanks to continued research into the development of microprocessors, our cell phones have continued to get smaller and now have computing power that rivals and now even beats that which was available in your common household computer only a few years ago. As the devices have gotten smaller, their storage capacities have grown larger, and their uses more varied. Now people use their cell phones for a variety of tasks including making phone calls.
Wireless technology
On the other end of the spectrum, the advances in the area of cell wireless technology, even in just the last few years, have led to a host of useful developments. The most notable is of course is the amount of data that can be sent at a time through a wireless connection. Only a few years ago, networking technology was dealing with the wireless a standard which offered little more than 2 or 3 Mb (Megabits) per second. Then arrived the improved wireless b standard offering 11 Mb per second, more than tripling previous rates and making wireless technology a viable alternative to standard wired connections in some situations. Wireless g came next offering a staggering 54 Mb per second, nearly half the speed of a standard wired connection at the time. Now we have the wireless n standard which offers about 100 Mb per second and making possible large home networks with many connected devices, without the need to run cables through your entire house.
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Fusion of technologies
Of course, cell phones and wireless technology did not develop in a vacuum and actually advanced together making them inexorably intertwined. The cell phone networks we use every day are really just a massive extension of the same technology we use in our own homes and cell phones, just smaller versions of the computers we use for all sorts of things. Now features are even coming out that allow you to access data through your home wireless connection instead of the cell phone network, as well as make phone calls using your wireless network at home rather than connecting to the nearest tower. These features not only reduce costs, but expand the wireless network to anywhere you can get internet access.
It is amazing what kind of new developments can come in only a few years’ time. Who is to say what new technology is just on the horizon and how it will change and shape our culture?
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