From WAP to LTE: Happy #InternetDay

Today is International Internet Day and to mark the occasion, we look back to some of the mobile phones that delivered the World Wide Web into our hands.

WAP — 1999

Connecting to the Internet was first possible on our mobile phones in 1999 with the release of the Nokia 7110.

Before the turn of the century, there was no YouTube, no Spotify, and certainly no Xbox Live, which meant that Internet use was fairly limited by today’s standards.

The Nokia 7110’s WAP browser delivered content onto its monochrome display while allowing for emailing and downloading of monophonic ringtones.

WAP increased in popularity and by the early 2000s, everyone was using it. Technology needed to advance.

3G — 2002

WAP made way for the faster 3G, and the world’s first 3G mobile phone was the Nokia 6650.

With faster information-transfer rates of at least 200 kbit/s, we could do more online with our phones, including downloading applications (apps) from the precursor to an app store.

Today, 3G still exists on every Lumia smartphone and we use it to send and receive emails instantly, update our Facebook statuses or upload photos to OneDrive.

As our requirements and our smartphones evolve, so do the speeds.

4G — 2012

Thanks to 4G, pretty much everything you can do on a PC can now be achieved on your smartphone–possibly even faster!

With download speeds of 100 Mbit/s and upload speeds of 50 Mbit/s, you can stream your favorite movie or box set from Netflix, battle it out with people from around the world in Age of Empires: Battle Siege, or make smooth video calls via Skype right from your Lumia.

While not as commonplace as 3G (after all, it has been around for about a decade), 4G is included in some of our devices, such as:

No matter which smartphone you use and at what speed you connect to the Web, we’re now more connected than ever.

Happy #InternetDay everybody!

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