Do you think mobile companies know their history?

Got this in from SMS Text News reader Matt…

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I was reading Ewan’s post from the other day about the complete lack of innovation in the mobile industry and couldn’t help but think about the development of wireless communication in general. You see, I’ve been reading a book on Marconi’s development of wireless telegraphy at the start of the 20th century and can’t help but think about how things compare to the current mobile industry.

A hundred years ago (give or take) your communication options were a little more limited than we take for granted today. If you wanted to send a message to somebody you could send a letter (the royal mail had several deliveries a day); or if you had enough money (and the person you wanted to talk to also did) you could use the new telephone. Most people who needed to send a message faster than the royal mail could deliver would send a telegraph – a short message, comprised of a handful of characters, usually no more than a couple of lines as the more text you sent the more the message cost (beginning to sound familiar?)

Enter Guglielmo Marconi with his spark gap transmitter and “coherer”, capable of transmitting morse code without the use of wires. Although Marconi didn’t invent the transmitting or receiving devices – he poured in an enourmous amount of time, effort and resources into developing this new “wireless telegraphy” and it wasn’t long before people were able to send short text messages “through the ether”. An amazing revolution at the time – it enabled communication between ships before they came within sight of land – it was even used to send messages to Queen Victoria.

A hundred years on, with all the advances in technology, what are the majority of the population using their mobiles for? That’s right – making telephone callls and sending short messages comprising of a few characters. To think Ewan is complaining that things haven’t changed much over the past few years.

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Thanks for the insight Matt! I’ve never thought of that…