Twenty years ago tomorrow (Friday), an historic agreement was signed in Copenhagen by 15 telecommunications operators from 13 countries that led to the development of the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), and a mobile communications industry that today serves more than
2.5 billion people across 218 countries and territories.The 'Memorandum of Understanding' agreement of 7th September 1987 laid the foundation for the first Europe-wide digital cellular system, which soon became the world's first global mobile system as used by more than
700 mobile operators and served by thousands of suppliers today. The agreement also triggered a technology evolution path that continues today with the roll-out of more than 120 mobile broadband networks in 61 countries.GSM - originally known as Groupe Special Mobile was designed to provide a single mobile phone standard within Europe to replace the multiple of incompatible analogue systems in use at the time. It was ironically, never designed as a global system from the outset, but was later adopted by other countries, initially Australia's Telstra for their phone systems and eventually the Groupe Special Mobile became the Global System for Mobile Communications.
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