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Chandrakant 'CK' Isi
16th Aug 2016
Iconic Mobiles That Gave Indians Freedom | TechTree.com
Iconic Mobiles That Gave Indians Freedom
There was a time when state owned Telcos held users to ransom. Mobiles rendered them redundant and some of these models redefined mobile telephony.

While we often complain about promotional calls, unwanted social media posts and silly WhatsApp forwards, a few generations back, folks had some real problems. Sending a word out was a daunting task, which was largely dependent on runners and scanty networks of post offices. Things started becoming efficient as India got its first electric telegraph (Taar) line between Calcutta and Diamond Harbour in 1850. Soon, the network expanded into other cities such as Peshawar, Agra, Bombay, Madras, and Bangalore. By 1854, the service was opened to the lesser mortals.
Telegraph got the first glimpse of its rival when in 1881, Oriental Telephone Company Limited of England gained approval to open telephone exchanges at Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Ahmedabad. Within a year, telephone service went live with around 93 subscribers. While the British effectively used telephone and telegraph to control India, it remained out of the grasp of most civilians.
Then in 1947, India got its Independence. But, the development in the telecom sector lingered mostly due to the monopoly of incompetent government owned entities. Finally, with globalization knocking on the door, telephone network expansion gained some momentum in the 1980s. Within a decade, landline phones became a common sight.
However, to get freedom from the wires though, India had to wait till 1995. The first cellular call in India was made on Modi Telstra mobile network backed by Nokia's infrastructure.
As our country's economy opened up, global mobile brands and network operators saw the great potential in country's mobile growth.
Here are a few conic mobile phones that gave Indians the freedom from state-owned landlines and rapidly changed the way we communicated.








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