Why are people in love with their mobile phones? Because in theory, voice telephony was designed for mobility and personal communication: mobile phones are simple the latest and best embodiment of it. Over the next five years the mobile phone will become a total personal communication tool. Your mobile number will come to be associated with you as a person. New services will include voice mail and personal faxes. To obtain a hard copy, you can either hook up the mobile to a PC and use a printer or, you can call it up when it suits you and direct it to the nearest fax machine (at the hotel you are staying in, or the office you're visiting, for example) That's a useful feature if the fax contains sensitive information as you can actually watch it being printed out.
Mobile phone-to-lap-top integration will advance greatly. We will probably see receivers attached to laptops, to keep the business user connected to data transmissions from the office. As for the phones themselves, the drive is on to make them lighter and smaller and to expand their battery life. The latter, I would say, is presently the biggest limitation on mobile phones. I use a larger battery option which gives me enough power for about three days? use without recharging.
One of the factors boosting customer demand in Europe is standardization in form of the digital GSM (global system for mobile telecommunication). It means you can interface mobile and faxes link telephones and make calls all over Europe. GSM is being expanded into other parts of the world, such as Asia and Australia. It's even slowly coming to Africa.
Unfortunately, it's very hard for North Americans to accept the idea of a European standard, but there could be a degree of transatlantic convergence. Some of the companies awarded operating licences in America are going to use GSM technology, albeit on a different band width. At the moment, GSM is operating on 900 megahertz (MHz). The next generation will be 1800 MHz. It may be possible for a European to take his/her phone to American and 'roam-in' on the American band.
Within Europe, the two systems will overlap for many years. We're actually expecting dual-mode handsets, enabling phones to operate on GSM 900 or 1800. At present, the GSM 900 network is rather overcrowded in high density areas such as major cities. So the larger capacity offered by GSM 1800 is definitely needed.
What is the main idea of this passage?
A mobile phone is an ideal tool for doing business.
GSM is going to link every part of the world together.
A mobile phone will be very important for everyone in the future.
With new technology, a dual-mode mobile phone will be possible.
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