CREDIT: Bill Keay, Vancouver Sun It’s the 20th anniversary of wireless phones in Canada and Keeley Evenson, 20, a sales rep for Telus Mobility, was just born when the first large cellphone (left) came on the market. On right is Motorola’s newest cellphone, a Mike i833 Baby Phat.

Brad Lowe, Nokia Canada‘s Vancouver director of research and development, has seen the future, and it’s in Finland.

He’s just back from that country where the cellphone is as common as snow, with reports of phones that allow users to text message a cab with their location for pickup and then get a confirmation back instead of hanging around on hold. They can even use cellphones to buy lottery tickets.

In Vancouver, we’re getting a hint of that future with cellphone parking payments already available.

“We’ve gone from something that was really designed for one specific use — to be able to make phone calls anywhere, any time — to today when you have a multi-media computer in your pocket that happens to make phone calls as well,” says Lowe.

“You are replacing multiple pieces of consumer electronics with one device that allows you to do digital photography, listen to music, watch video and, by the way, you can make a phone call as well.”

It was 20 years ago this July 1 that Canada‘s first cellular networks were turned on.

Back then $5,000 would buy you a cellphone that was so heavy it could double as a lethal weapon. It also came with a humongous battery that seemed to last mere minutes.

If you drove a few kilometres in the wrong direction, you’d be clear out of the limited cell range. If you couldn’t afford to buy, your other option was leasing a phone for $89 a month. And that didn’t even start to pay for the air time.

Twenty-first-century cellphones are slick, tiny devices that offer a full range of mobile communications and entertainment options.

You can talk on them, text message on the them, walkie talk on them, e-mail, play online Poker, deliver data, take pictures, send pictures and video, listen to music, play personalized music for your callers, pay your parking, check out videos and in the latest incarnation, even tune into television. And that’s only a start.

The size of cellphones has shrunk almost as fast as the number of features they offer has expanded.

Prices have also plummeted. While early cellphones were probably worth more than some of the used cars they were driven around in, phones today come with a wealth of promotions and incentives that often bring their price down to zero.

“This is the 20th anniversary of wireless, and now one in two Canadians have a wireless phone. It has been a fascinating industry to watch the growth,” said George Cope, president and chief executive officer of Telus Mobility.

“It has changed the fabric of people’s lives. It is a technology that has also, in a way, changed society.”

Last year was the year of the camera phone. By now camera phones are becoming ubiquitous and offering huge improvements over the earliest low-resolution models. Nokia’s recently announced Nseries next-generation multimedia devices — note how they aren’t even called phones any more — can be found with Carl Zeiss optics, a mega pixel camera and multi-gigabyte memory, and other features like VHS resolution video, WLAN and music.

Music is the next must-have on cellular users’ wish lists.

This week Sony Ericsson announced its second Walkman phone, the W600 which combines high-quality digital music with 3D gaming and mega pixel imaging, another convergence device that offers voice communications almost as an aside to its array of other functions, from Internet access and e-mail to many others that used to require a full PC to deliver.

Text messaging also has taken off, with Canadians sending some 115 million text messages last March, or 3.7 million a day, compared to the 10 million they sent in March 2002, the last month before the wireless carriers moved to interoperability so text messages could be sent and received between any phones, regardless of the carrier.

That same capability will be added to photos, videos and music starting next month.

They are still communications devices. though, and walkie-talkie-like phones are catching on with consumers who can chat across the continent as easily as if they were in the same block.

“Since we launched our 10-4 service we haven’t been able to keep enough handsets in our stores,” said Andrew Wright, Bell Mobility’s associate director of business development.

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association has a lot to celebrate with the industry’s 20th anniversary.

“When you look back to 1985, it was a service for the elite, a novelty service for those people who could afford it,” said Marc Choma, the association’s communications director. “Now you just don’t think twice about it.

“Even five years ago, people would say, ‘Do you have a cellphone?’ Now people say, ‘What’s your cell number?'”

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20 YEARS OF GOING WIRELESS

1985: Wireless networks were launched in Canada with only a few early adopters who had the money and the patience to use the earliest cellphones.

1995: 2.6 million Canadians had cellphones

2005: 15 million Canadians use wireless phones. An estimated 1.5 million more will get their first cellphone this year, the same number that bought phones in the first decade of wireless service.

BY THE NUMBERS

$1 billion: The average annual spending on networks and infrastructure since the industry started, for a total of $20 billion to date.

95 per cent: The proportion of Canada‘s population who live in areas with wireless coverage.

July 1, 2005: Implementation date by Canadian wireless carriers of inter-carrier Multimedia Messaging Service, allowing for pictures, videos and sound files to be sent between clients of different carriers.

Source: Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and TELUS Mobility

CELLPHONES WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS

Ericsson W600

Plays high quality digital music, has 3D gaming, mega pixel imaging, text and voice communication and Internet access. Firm has signed a music deal with Napster.

Motorola Mike i833

Baby Phat

Dressed up with real diamonds (4 carats) Push-to-talk with built-in earpiece jack. Digital voice recorder, voice recogniton dialling and downloadable ringtones and wallpapers.

Nokia’s Nseries

The N91, developed in Vancouver, is a multimedia phone that snaps print-quality images, reads e-mail, plays music, surfs the web, provides mobile TV and more.

© The Vancouver Sun 2005