Mobitex
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Mobitexis anOSIbasedopen standard,national public accesswirelesspacket-switched data network. Mobitex puts great emphasis on safety and reliability with its use by military, police, firefighters and ambulance services. It was developed in the beginning of the 1980s by the SwedishTeleverketRadio. From 1988, the development took place in Eritel, a joint-venture betweenEricssonand Televerket, later on as an Ericsson subsidiary. Mobitex became operational in Sweden in 1986.
In the mid-1990s, Mobitex gained consumer popularity by providingtwo-waypaging networkservices. It was the first wireless network to provide always on, wirelesspush emailservices such asRadioMailandInter@ctive Paging.It is also used by the first model ofResearch in Motion'sBlackBerry,andPDAssuch as thePalm VII.During9/11and the2005 hurricanerescue and clean-up operations, Mobitex proved itself to be a very reliable and useful system for first responders.
Mobitex is apacket-switched,narrowband,data-only technology mainly for short burst data. Mobitex channels are 12.5 kHz wide. In North America, Mobitex ran at900 MHz,while in Europe it uses400 - 450 MHz.Themodulationscheme used isGMSKwith aslotted alohaprotocolat8000 bit/s,although user throughput is typically around half of that.
The network provided the first public access wireless data communication services in North America. Subscriber services included electronic messaging withCccapabilities to multiple recipients, combined with the ability to log on to any wireless or fixed terminal and receive stored mailbox messages.
Mobitex was offered on over 30 networks on five continents. European Mobitex networks almost completely withered in the shadow of the overwhelming success ofGSMthere in the early 1990s. In Canada, it was first introduced in 1990 byRogersCantel,and in 1991 bycarrierRAM Mobile Data.In earlier days Mobitex networks in the US were marketed under several names, including RAM Mobile Data,BellSouthWireless Data,CingularWireless andVelocita Wirelessfollowing several acquisitions and divestments. Since 2013 the network is operated by American Messaging Services, LLC (AMS) and remains operational.
Mobitex in the UK was marketed by RAM Mobile Data, the UK part of which was purchased from BellSouth (USA) by Twenty First Century Ltd (John Camilleri and Adrian Nicolle) in 2000, that became Transcomm and was then purchased byBT(British Telecom) in 2004. The uses of Mobitex in the United Kingdom were all emergencies (blue light) services, couriers, vehicle telematics (logistics), vending (parking) and vehicle breakdown services (RAC, AA, Green Flag).
All UK ambulance services used the network to dispatch crews and track progress. The London Metropolitan Police used Mobitex to access the police criminal record database whilst in field and in real time, revolutionary at the time. During the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London, the Transcomm Network was the only wireless network which kept running. Nearly all breakdowns to Green Flag UK service agents were sent usingTurbo Dispatch,a Mobitex-based gateway software developed in the early nineties by Ian Lane and Andy Lambert. Despite the competitive nature of the vehicle recovery market in the UK, motoring organisations were persuaded to co-operate and make a standard of the format. This resulted in a major saving for the eight hundred independent garages used by the motoring organisations. The Turbo Dispatch Standards Group (the official keepers of the standard) estimated that at least twenty million breakdowns and recoveries were transmitted over Turbo Dispatch each year. BT subsidiary Transcomm announced the shutdown of the network in 2010.
In Sweden, the Mobitex network was finally shut down permanently on December 31, 2012 after 25 years.
As of 2020[update],Mobitex is mainly used in Belgium, the Netherlands (bothRAM Mobile Data) (including network coverage of Luxembourg), Hong Kong (Telecom Digital Data Ltd), Canada (Rogers) and the US (AMS).
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- Sven Lindmark: "Evolution of techno-economic systems (2002): an investigation of the history of mobile communications",ISBN91-7291-194-8
- Professional Recovery, December 2001, Partnership Publications
- Vehicle Recovery Link, May 1999, R K Solutions.
- Hagen's Heroes, a Green Flag Publication
External links[edit]
- Turbo Exchange
- Mobitex Technology
- Mobitex Association
- Mobitex Terminal Specifications, article 1991
- the history of Turbo Dispatch, article 2006
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| 1G(1979) |
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| 2G(1991) |
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| 2G transitional (2.5G, 2.75G, 2.9G) |
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| 3G(1998) IMT-2000(2001) |
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| 3G transitional (3.5G, 3.75G, 3.9G) |
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| 4G(2009) IMT Advanced(2013) |
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| 5G(2018) IMT-2020(2021) |
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