the nostalgy thread | all about the early days of mobile telephony

[inquisitor]

Sure, I meant 2007. 1997 was exactly the year, when the first dualband handset was released in Germany. It was the "eplus Traveller" (aka Motorola 8900), which was the first device with vibration and you had to switch between GSM900 and 1800 manually.

[adam917]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

Sure, I meant 2007. 1997 was exactly the year, when the first dualband handset was released in Germany. It was the "eplus Traveller" (aka Motorola 8900), which was the first device with vibration and you had to switch between GSM900 and 1800 manually.

Wow. I'm curious: When did the first tri-band (900/1800/1900) GSM phone get released? Also, were dual-band 900/1900 devices common among travellers yet?

[inquisitor]

The first triband phone was the Motorola Timeport P7389, which came in 2000. Dualband phones were not very common in the late 1990s, since GSM1800 networks had little coverage and so started with cheaper tariffs, which attracted mostly private customers, who in turn were price-conscious and so not ready to spend those crazy roaming rates back then. So there was little demand for roaming on GSM900 abroad from GSM1800-users, while business people used GSM900-phones and operators due to the better coverage anyway. I think the demand for dualband phones came primarily from Scandinavian network operators, who were the first to be issued licenses for both frequencies (900 & 1800) and so to run dualband networks, requiring handsets, that could operate on both frequency bands.

Maybe we should open a nostalgy thread for this topic.

[petkow]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

Maybe we should open a nostalgy thread for this topic.

I'm with you! Good idea... so sorry if this is going OT.

I remember the first dual band phone that I used in late 1998. It was a dark purple Nokia 6110 and belonged to my big sister who was working in Germany at the time. Even though it was for her I was the one who read up on it and told her what to get! She was well impressed with how small it was. (though it can be considered a brick these days!)

At the time it was quite an expensive handset and really the fact it was dual band was marketed as such a big deal! It was with Viag Intercom who were a small GSM 1800 network in Germany but had some funny deal with Swiss telecom (I think), so that their customers could "roam" on the larger D1 network in Germany who were on GSM 900. (Hence the real need for dual band phones even for customers who didn't roam internationally). I think calls made on the D1 nework incurred a 10 Pfennig surcharge or something. Perhaps someone else remembers the details better?

[inquisitor]

Let's continue here.

[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by petkow

It was a dark purple Nokia 6110 and belonged to my big sister who was working in Germany at the time.

The 6110 was GSM900, it's dualband version, which your sister had, was designated 6150. I do still own both and the 6150 is still working in my car kit. There was also the 6130, a GSM1800 version and the 6190 for GSM1900. These were great phones and the first ones that could receive logos and ringtones by SMS. I still hate me for neglecting the idea of setting up a logo and ringtone service, which we had brought to a running Linux system with a friend already in 4Q 1997, when we decided no one would actually pay money for having a damn logo in his display, when anyone could do that himself for free with a cheap datacable. A couple of years later logos and ringtones became a multi-million industry.

At the time it was quite an expensive handset and really the fact it was dual band was marketed as such a big deal! It was with Viag Intercom who were a small GSM 1800 network in Germany but had some funny deal with Swiss telecom (I think), so that their customers could "roam" on the larger D1 network in Germany who were on GSM 900. (Hence the real need for dual band phones even for customers who didn't roam internationally). I think calls made on the D1 nework incurred a 10 Pfennig surcharge or something. Perhaps someone else remembers the details better?

Viag Interkom (today O2 Germany) still have a national roaming agreement with T-Mobile, which will finally end at the end of next year. However they soon realized the roaming option directly with T-Mobile. Earlier - as you mentioned - Viag had dual-IMSI-SIMs, which had a Viag IMSI and one from Swisscom, which was used for national roaming on T-Mobile, since a direct national roaming faced opposition from T-Mobile and Vodafone also due to legal issues.

@mods
Could you please move the last postings to the nostalgy thread | all about the early days of mobile telephony ? Thank you! done (beppe_bl)

[Motel75]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

The first triband phone was the Motorola Timeport P7389, which came in 2000.

Close - it was the Timeport L7089, which came out in late 1999. The P7389 was the same phone with a WAP browser (and was, along with the Nokia 7110, just about the first WAP-equipped phone). The 7089 was a blue color, while the 7389 was silver. (My 7389 still works just fine - I got in on 30 January 2000, and remember the date for some reason. You can still use the browser, though it's pretty painful experience.)

[Effendi]

I think the big success of dual-band phones, at least here in Italy, was with Wind and the Siemens C25, a cheap and easy phone, in 1999.
Wind had only DCS 1800 coverage, but had roaming agreements with TIM out of the 8 main cities where they had their own coverage. Then national roaming with Omnitel (then Vodafone) arrived too... so a dual-band phone was needed unless you lived in one of those 8 cities (such as me!).

[petkow]

Thanks for that. Interesting the issue with dual imsi sims as a precursor to cheap national roaming way back in 1998.

[Motel75]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

I think the demand for dualband phones came primarily from Scandinavian network operators, who were the first to be issued licenses for both frequencies (900 & 1800) and so to run dualband networks, requiring handsets, that could operate on both frequency bands.

I think E-Plus was keen on it, in part because in 1997 it was still owned 17 percent by Vodafone, which otherwise owned the UK GSM 900 network or minority holdings in foreign 900 networks (its pre-behemoth business strategy), and this would have enabled roaming on Vodafone-associated networks. (The other owners of E-Plus at the time were non-telcos, as I recall.)