Some Funny Facts From Telecom Industry...

The telecommunications  industry is one of the fastest–growing industries in the world, the evolution of which is really fascinating.  In fact, the rise of the telephone and associated industries  produced some of the most essential technological changes in the history of humankind, and all these within little more than one hundred twenty-five years. This period of time is full of extraordinary leaps of innovation and invention, that made telecommunication systems what they are today. The history of telecom industry began with the use of smoke signals and drums in Africa, some parts of Asia and the Americas. The first fixed semaphore systems emerged in Europe in the 1790s, but it was not until the 1830s that electrical telecommunication systems started to appear. With such a rich history and diverse developments, telecom industry can be characterized by many interesting, as well as funny facts, which we'll explore in this article.

• Alexander Graham Bell  wanted the greeting for the telephone to be "Ahoy", as it is used in ships, but  later it was superseded by Thomas Edison, who suggested "Hello" instead.
  

• Telephone wires were ranked according to how tasty they were to rats and mice.    
• The  first phone call was "Watson come here, I want you!"  It was made in 1876 in Boston between Alexander Bell and his assistant T. Watson.
  
• The sign ‘Make it short’ was hung beside all  the public telephones in Germany between the years 1930 and 1970. German style!
  
• The first mobile phone text was "Merry Christmas.'' 21 years ago Neil Papworth, a software programmer from Reading, sent the first message to his friend Richard Jarvis of Vodafone. At that time mobile phones didn't have keyboards, that's why  it was sent via personal computer.
  
• The first cell phone  used by James Bond was an Ericsson JB988 in Tomorrow Never Dies in 1997.
  
• The  most expensive mobile phone in the world carries a £6.7million price tag. It's a version of the iPhone. It  is made from solid gold, encrusted with 500 diamonds and comes in a platinum box.
  
• The most common use for a mobile is neither texting nor calling but checking the time. 
  
• Long before the iPhone there was IBM Simon. It was released in 1993. In fact, this bulky gadget was the first smart-phone, it had calendar, fax, touch screen and a host of other features.  The cost of device was £500.
  
• Holiday season makes us chattier, so the number of phone calls increases greatly, as everyone desires to reach out to friends and family to express their good wishes. Which Holiday inspires more phone calls? Do you think it's New Year? Then,  think again. In fact, Americans make an average of 11% more calls on Mother's day(31.3%,) than during the rest of the year, ranking 18 in the world. It is 11% higher than Valentine's day,(27.9 %), 8% higher than New Year(28.8%),  62% higher than Halloween (11.9 %).
  

Voice over IP (VoIP), which is the latest development of telecom industry was once considered to be a dead technology by many analysts and experts. In fact, they had no idea that one day it would top the decade's best-performing industries list. According to the results of a market research made by IBISWorld, the percentage by which the VoIP industry has grown is astonishing: 179, 035.8 %, a figure more than a hundred times bigger than that of the runner up, the search engines industry. In fact, VoIP is a new industry, it officially came on the market in 2002. Since then, the huge growth due to massive adoption worldwide gave this  figure.

• The first VoIP call was made in December of 1974,  on the ARPANET, which is the precursor to todays’ Internet. It existed as a network of connections on government and educational computers. 
• Nowadays, gaming is a  popular way of using VoIP technology. It may seem unbelievable, but according to PoliceOne, criminals like mobsters and  drug dealers  use second life to launder game money into real money. 
• The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to make Wi-Fi available for free to all Americans, if such a thing happens,  then most of Americans can  make free calls using VoIP features over nationwide Wi-Fi.

Looking forward to new developments and fun facts in the world of telecommunications. Believe me, they won't make us wait for a long time, of that I am quite sure!