History of Wireless Communications
From Building the Wireless Future® to Expanding the Wireless Frontier™

1800's | 1900's | 2000's
2000
  • Wireless subscribership in America exceeds 100 million.
  • Digital wireless users outnumber analog subscribers
  • Nearly 1 million Americans directly or indirectly employed by wireless. (Jobs in the wireless industry pay wages that are approximately 78% higher than the national average.)
  •   The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association™ merges with the  Wireless Data Forum to become the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association™
  • Camera phones introduced in Japanese market.

2001

  • The average wireless consumer uses his or her phone for 320 minutes per month.
  • November 8, FCC votes to raise CMRS spectrum limits for individual carriers from 45 MHz to 55 MHz, and subsequently eliminate cap in January 2003.

2002

  • FCC awards 90 MHz of additional spectrum for advanced wireless services. 
  • Delivery of digital wireless data and voice enhanced networks (2.5G)
  • October 13, 2003: 20th Anniversary of Commercial Wireless Communications.

2004

  • Subscribership reaches over 180 million.
  • The Celluar Telecommunications & Internet Association™ changes it name to CTIA-The Wireless Association™


The wireless industry has always recognized the vital role it plays regarding public safety, and now you can use this powerful technology to possibly help recover an abducted child.

Wireless AMBER Alerts are free text messages available to wireless subscribers, and are the result of a partnership between the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the wireless industry,


For more information click here.