The first mobile telephone system in Europe was launched in Sweden. Since this can be considered as the pioneering country for mobile telecommunications in Europe a more extensive description of the technological evolution of the different phases is warranted. Unlike most other countries, Swedish Telecom decided to develop a fully automated system immediately. The Mobile telephone system A (MTA) was completed in 1952–3
and commercially launched in 1956. MTA worked in duplex (bi-directional traffic) with an automatic speech connection.
Swedish Telecom did not actively market the service. It requested that it should be self-financing and at the same time prices should be low enough to attract at least high-paying customers. MTA remained a regional system, in Stockholm, Gothenburg and MalmoÐ’Ð , with some 110 users, and was phased out in 1969. MTA suffered some substantial shortcomings: the
telephones were unwieldy (40 kg), the service was only regional, the connection times were long and the system was difficult to use. From the early 1950s improvements were studied which determined the new MTB.
Commercial service started in 1965 in Stockholm and Gothenburg, catering for 150 persons. In 1967–68 MTB was further extended, including MalmoВР, reaching some 500 subscribers. The system had an automatic speech connection and was based on the principle of dual tone, which
meant that an exclusive selection tone identified the mobile telephone. The transition went to the fixed telecommunications network through the subscriber’s relays with a unique subscriber card for each subscriber. This implied that the system could be used only if the subscriber had a subscriber card at several base stations. A time-out device was built into the system, a tone with increased intensity came on when conversations lasted longer than 3 minutes and continued until the connection was cut off. The weight of the subscriber unit was around 9 kg. MTB was dismantled in early 1983.