One of the many things we tend to take for granted, simply because we feel like they have always been around are mobile phone but the 20th anniversary for GSM is a great reminder of how it used to be just a few years ago. For those who don’t know, 20 years today people from the mobile phone industry decided to create an international mobile phone network and this network was called GSM. Because of GSM you can now travel for example from any country in the Middle East to Africa or Europe without having to buy a new line in your country of destination.

Many argue that if it wasn’t for GSM, this unexpected growth in the use of mobile phones would have never occurred. This is backed up by the amazing statistic that after 12 years of mobile phones seeing the light there were only 1 billion people using them however after 30 months of GSM being available the number shot up to 2 billion! Who knows what it would have been like had GSM not been introduced? Maybe mobile phones without GSM would have been seen as an inconvenience and they could have become instinct!

By Karim