One of the defining characteristics of the modern world is the extreme mobility of the population. Whether for business or pleasure, people tend to move about and this led to the necessity of developing technology that would allow them to carry their communications with them. The early 1980’s saw the first regional cell phone networks being deployed in urban areas. This system allowed a person’s phone connection to switch among cell tower locations as they moved between the ranges of different pick-up points without interruption of service.All these early mobile cell phones were rather large and were generally installed as “car” phones. However, miniaturization of the components began shrinking the size of these phones as the new millennium approached. With the turn of the twenty-first century, cell phones had become pocket-sized and new features were beginning to be deployed within the phone. Wireless internet technology bean to merge the traditional cell phone with portable computer services and cell phones came into being that could access the internet directly for the purposes of checking e-mail and exchanging text messages.
This function soon led to the development of mobile phone web browsers that would allow a user to actually access the World Wide Web and browse in much the same was as a portable laptop computer. Small digital cameras began to be placed in cell phones. With its many features it has taken the old mobile phone concept to the point of being very close to a fully functional pocket sized computer.