Mobile Phone: Ever Evolving

For roughly the past decade now the mobile phones market has been on a gradual increase, especially in the past 5 years or so.

For many people, their first mobile phones spent most of their time switched off and tucked away in handbags and glove boxes, reserved for emergency calls only.

Today's world sees the mobile phone through very different eyes though. Instead of taking the back seat, the mobile phone is a key component to many people's day-to-day lives.

"When you leave your house in the morning, there are three things you're going to take with you - phone, car keys, wallet. Also, there are far more mobile phones in the world ... now, and that number is expanding," says Duncan Ledwith from Melodio, the on-demand mobile phone and web entertainment provider.

According to Informa Telecoms & Media, at the end of September 2007, there where mobile phone networks in 224 countries across the globe, that's an increase of 189 in the last 20 years.

With an ever increasing array of cutting edge functions, there's simply no denying the status of the mobile phone, it has become a truly ubiquitous piece of equipment over the years.

Different cultures have managed to incorporate their mobile phones into some rather astonishing aspects of their lives.

For example, certain hospitals in Singapore are currently experimenting with a system that enables doctors to better communicate with patients by SMS or an Internet Portal systems using their mobile phones.

Wireless payment is also becoming an increasingly popular aspect of mobile phones, and users of certain newer models can benefit from GPS navigation systems.

source: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=716721