document_title: History of mobile phones

question_text: who invented mobile phone for the first time

question_tokens: who invented mobile phone for the first time

text: History of mobile phones

text: Predecessors[edit]

text: Before the devices existed that are now referred to as mobile phones or cell phones, there were some precursors. In 1908, a Professor Albert Jahnke and the Oakland Transcontinental Aerial Telephone and Power Company claimed to have developed a wireless telephone. They were accused of fraud and the charge was then dropped, but they do not seem to have proceeded with production.[2] Beginning in 1918, the German railroad system tested wireless telephony on military trains between Berlin and Zossen.[3] In 1924, public trials started with telephone connection on trains between Berlin and Hamburg. In 1925, the company Zugtelephonie AG was founded to supply train telephony equipment and, in 1926, telephone service in trains of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and the German mail service on the route between Hamburg and Berlin was approved and offered to first-class travelers.[4]

text: Fiction anticipated the development of real world mobile telephones. In 1906, the English caricaturist Lewis Baumer published a cartoon in Punch magazine entitled "Forecasts for 1907" in which he showed a man and a woman in London's Hyde Park each separately engaged in gambling and dating on wireless telephony equipment.[5] Then, in 1926, the artist Karl Arnold created a visionary cartoon about the use of mobile phones in the street, in the picture "wireless telephony", published in the German satirical magazine Simplicissimus.[6]

text: The Second World War made military use of radio telephony links. Hand-held radio transceivers have been available since the 1940s. Mobile telephones for automobiles became available from some telephone companies in the 1940s. Early devices were bulky, consumed high power, and the network supported only a few simultaneous conversations. Modern cellular networks allow automatic and pervasive use of mobile phones for voice and data communications.

text: In the United States, engineers from Bell Labs began work on a system to allow mobile users to place and receive telephone calls from automobiles, leading to the inauguration of mobile service on 17 June 1946 in St. Louis, Missouri. Shortly after, AT&T offered Mobile Telephone Service. A wide range of mostly incompatible mobile telephone services offered limited coverage area and only a few available channels in urban areas. The introduction of cellular technology, which allowed re-use of frequencies many times in small adjacent areas covered by relatively low powered transmitters, made widespread adoption of mobile telephones economically feasible.

text: In the USSR, Leonid Kupriyanovich, an engineer from Moscow, in 1957-1961 developed and presented a number of experimental pocket-sized communications radio. The weight of one model, presented in 1961, was only 70 g and could fit on a palm.[7][8] However, in the USSR the decision at first to develop the system of the automobile "Altai" phone was made.[9]

text: In 1965, the Bulgarian company "Radioelektronika" presented a mobile automatic phone combined with a base station at the Inforga-65 international exhibition in Moscow. Solutions of this phone were based on a system developed by Leonid Kupriyanovich. One base station, connected to one telephone wire line, could serve up to 15 customers.[10]

text: The advances in mobile telephony can be traced in successive generations from the early "0G" services like MTS and its successor Improved Mobile Telephone Service, to first-generation (1G) analog cellular network, second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, third-generation (3G) broadband data services to the state-of-the-art, fourth-generation (4G) native-IP networks.

text: Early services[edit]

text: MTS[edit]

text: In 1949, AT&T commercialized Mobile Telephone Service. From its start in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1946, AT&T introduced Mobile Telephone Service to one hundred towns and highway corridors by 1948. Mobile Telephone Service was a rarity with only 5,000 customers placing about 30,000 calls each week. Calls were set up manually by an operator and the user had to depress a button on the handset to talk and release the button to listen. The call subscriber equipment weighed about 80 pounds (36 kg)[11]

text: Subscriber growth and revenue generation were hampered by the constraints of the technology. Because only three radio channels were available, only three customers in any given city could make mobile telephone calls at one time.[12] Mobile Telephone Service was expensive, costing 15 USD per month, plus 0.30 to 0.40 USD per local call, equivalent to about 176 USD per month and 3.50 to 4.75 per call in 2012 USD.[11]

text: In the UK, there was also a vehicle-based system called "Post Office Radiophone Service,"[13] which was launched around the city of Manchester in 1959, and although it required callers to speak to an operator, it was possible to be put through to any subscriber in Great Britain. The service was extended to London in 1965 and other major cities in 1972.

text: IMTS[edit]

text: AT&T introduced the first major improvement to mobile telephony in 1965, giving the improved service the obvious name of Improved Mobile Telephone Service. IMTS used additional radio channels, allowing more simultaneous calls in a given geographic area, introduced customer dialing, eliminating manual call setup by an operator, and reduced the size and weight of the subscriber equipment.[11]

text: Despite the capacity improvement offered by IMTS, demand outstripped capacity. In agreement with state regulatory agencies, AT&T limited the service to just 40,000 customers system wide. In New York City, for example, 2,000 customers shared just 12 radio channels and typically had to wait 30 minutes to place a call.[11]

text: Radio Common Carrier[edit]

text: Radio Common Carrier[14] or RCC was a service introduced in the 1960s by independent telephone companies to compete against AT&T's IMTS. RCC systems used paired UHF 454/459 MHz and VHF 152/158 MHz frequencies near those used by IMTS. RCC based services were provided until the 1980s when cellular AMPS systems made RCC equipment obsolete.

text: Some RCC systems were designed to allow customers of adjacent carriers to use their facilities,  but equipment used by RCCs did not allow the equivalent of modern "roaming" because technical standards were not uniform.  For example, the phone of an Omaha, Nebraska–based RCC service would not be likely to work in Phoenix, Arizona. Roaming was not encouraged, in part, because there was no centralized industry billing database for RCCs. Signaling formats were not standardized. For example, some systems used two-tone sequential paging to alert a mobile of an incoming call. Other systems used DTMF. Some used Secode 2805, which transmitted an interrupted 2805 Hz tone (similar to IMTS signaling) to alert mobiles of an offered call. Some radio equipment used with RCC systems was half-duplex, push-to-talk LOMO equipment such as Motorola hand-helds or RCA 700-series conventional two-way radios. Other vehicular equipment had telephone handsets and rotary dials or pushbutton pads, and operated full duplex like a conventional wired telephone. A few users had full-duplex briefcase telephones (radically advanced for their day)

text: At the end of RCC's existence, industry associations were working on a technical standard that would have allowed roaming, and some mobile users had multiple decoders to enable operation with more than one of the common signaling formats (600/1500, 2805, and Reach). Manual operation was often a fallback for RCC roamers.

text: Other services[edit]

text: In 1969 Penn Central Railroad equipped commuter trains along the 360 kilometres (220 mi) New York-Washington route with special pay phones that allowed passengers to place telephone calls while the train was moving.  The system re-used six frequencies in the 450 MHz band in nine sites.[12]

text:
In the UK, Channel Islands and elsewhere the "Rabbit" phone system was briefly used, being a hybrid of "cell" base stations and handsets. One major limitation was that you had to be less than 300 feet (closer with buildings) from a base due to power limitations on a portable device.
[15][better source needed]
With modern technology a similar variant is being considered for Apple's new 4G "smart watch" so they can be used in large events in a broadly similar way to a femtocell.

text: European mobile radio networks[edit]

text: This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: In Europe, several mutually incompatible mobile radio services were developed.

text: In 1966 Norway had a system called OLT which was manually controlled. Finland's ARP, launched in 1971, was also manual as was the Swedish MTD. All were replaced by the automatic NMT, (Nordic Mobile Telephone) system in the early 1980s.

text: In July 1971 Readycall was introduced in London by Burndept after obtaining a special concession to break the Post Office monopoly to allow selective calling to mobiles of calls from the public telephone system. This system was available to the public for a subscription of £16 month. A year later the service was extended to two other UK towns.[16]

text: West Germany had a network called A-Netz launched in 1952 as the country's first public commercial mobile phone network. In 1972 this was displaced by B-Netz which connected calls automatically.

text: The cellular concept[edit]

text: In December 1947, Douglas H. Ring and W. Rae Young, Bell Labs engineers, proposed hexagonal cells for mobile phones in vehicles.[17]   At this stage, the technology to implement these ideas did not exist, nor had the frequencies been allocated.  Two decades would pass before Richard H. Frenkiel, Joel S. Engel and Philip T. Porter of Bell Labs expanded the early proposals into a much more detailed system plan. It was Porter who first proposed that the cell towers use the now-familiar directional antennas to reduce interference and increase channel reuse (see picture at right)[18] Porter also invented the dial-then-send method used by all cell phones to reduce wasted channel time.

text: In all these early examples, a mobile phone had to stay within the coverage area serviced by one base station throughout the phone call, i.e. there was no continuity of service as the phones moved through several cell areas.  The concepts of frequency reuse and handoff, as well as a number of other concepts that formed the basis of modern cell phone technology, were described in the late 1960s, in papers by Frenkiel and Porter. In 1970 Amos E. Joel, Jr., a Bell Labs engineer,[19] invented a "three-sided trunk circuit" to aid in the "call handoff" process from one cell to another.  His patent contained an early description of the Bell Labs cellular concept, but as switching systems became faster, such a circuit became unnecessary and was never implemented in a system.

text: A cellular telephone switching plan was described by Fluhr and Nussbaum in 1973,[20] and a cellular telephone data signaling system was described in hipatitas by Hachenburg et al.[21]

text: Emergence of automated services[edit]

text: The first fully automated mobile phone system for vehicles was launched in Sweden in 1956. Named MTA (Mobiltelefonisystem A), it allowed calls to be made and received in the car using a rotary dial. The car phone could also be paged. Calls from the car were direct dial, whereas incoming calls required an operator to locate the nearest base station to the car. It was developed by Sture Laurén and other engineers at Televerket network operator. Ericsson provided the switchboard while Svenska Radioaktiebolaget (SRA) and Marconi provided the telephones and base station equipment. MTA phones consisted of vacuum tubes and relays, and weighed 40 kilograms (88 lb). In 1962, an upgraded version called Mobile System B (MTB) was introduced. This was a push-button telephone, and used transistors and DTMF signaling to improve its operational reliability. In 1971 the MTD version was launched, opening for several different brands of equipment and gaining commercial success.[22][23] The network remained open until 1983 and still had 600 customers when it closed.

text: In 1958 development began on a similar system for motorists in the USSR.[24] The "Altay" national civil mobile phone service was based on Soviet MRT-1327 standard. The main developers of the Altay system were the Voronezh Science Research Institute of Communications (VNIIS) and the State Specialized Project Institute (GSPI). In 1963 the service started in Moscow, and by 1970 was deployed in 30 cities across the USSR. Versions of the Altay system are still in use today as a trunking system in some parts of Russia.

text: In 1959 a private telephone company in Brewster, Kansas, USA, the S&T Telephone Company, (still in business today) with the use of Motorola Radio Telephone equipment and a private tower facility, offered to the public mobile telephone services in that local area of NW Kansas. This system was a direct dial up service through their local switchboard, and was installed in many private vehicles including grain combines, trucks, and automobiles. For some as yet unknown reason, the system, after being placed online and operated for a very brief time period, was shut down. The management of the company was immediately changed, and the fully operable system and related equipment was immediately dismantled in early 1960, not to be seen again.[citation needed]

text: In 1966, Bulgaria presented the pocket mobile automatic phone RAT-0,5 combined with a base station RATZ-10 (RATC-10) on Interorgtechnika-66 international exhibition. One base station, connected to one telephone wire line, could serve up to six customers ("Radio" magazine, 2, 1967; "Novosti dnya" newsreel, 37, 1966).

text: One of the first successful public commercial mobile phone networks was the ARP network in Finland, launched in 1971. Posthumously, ARP is sometimes viewed as a zero generation (0G) cellular network, being slightly above previous proprietary and limited coverage networks.[citation needed]

text: Handheld mobile phone[edit]

text: Prior to 1973, mobile telephony was limited to phones installed in cars and other vehicles.[19] Motorola was the first company to produce a handheld mobile phone.  On April 3, 1973, Martin Cooper, a Motorola researcher and executive, made the first mobile telephone call from handheld subscriber equipment, placing a call to Dr. Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs, his rival.[25][26][27]  The prototype handheld phone used by Dr. Cooper weighed 1.1 kilograms (2.4 lb) and measured 23 by 13 by 4.5 centimetres (9.1 by 5.1 by 1.8 in). The prototype offered a talk time of just 30 minutes and took 10 hours to re-charge.[28]

text: John F. Mitchell,[29][30][31] Motorola's chief of portable communication products and Cooper's boss in 1973, played a key role in advancing the development of handheld mobile telephone equipment. Mitchell failed to push Motorola into developing wireless communication products that would be small enough to use anywhere and participated in the design of the cellular phone.[32][33]

text: The early generations[edit]

text: Newer technology has been developed and rolled out in a series of waves or generations. The "generation" terminology only became widely used when 3G was launched, but is now used retroactively when referring to the earlier systems.

text: 1G – Analogue cellular[edit]

text: First automatic analogue cellular systems deployed were NTT's system first used in Tokyo in 1979, later spreading to the whole of Japan, and NMT in the Nordic countries in 1981.

text: The first analogue cellular system widely deployed in North America was the Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS).[34] It was commercially introduced in the Americas in 13 October 1983, Israel in 1986, and Australia in 1987. AMPS was a pioneering technology that helped drive mass market usage of cellular technology, but it had several serious issues by modern standards. It was unencrypted and easily vulnerable to eavesdropping via a scanner; it was susceptible to cell phone "cloning" and it used a Frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) scheme and required significant amounts of wireless spectrum to support.

text: On 6 March 1983, the DynaTAC 8000X mobile phone launched on the first US 1G network by Ameritech.  It cost $100m to develop, and took over a decade to reach the market.[35] The phone had a talk time of just thirty-five minutes and took ten hours to charge. Consumer demand was strong despite the battery life, weight, and low talk time, and waiting lists were in the thousands.[36][37]

text: Many of the iconic early commercial cell phones such as the Motorola DynaTAC Analog AMPS were eventually superseded by Digital AMPS (D-AMPS) in 1990, and AMPS service was shut down by most North American carriers by 2008.

text: In February 1986 Australia launched its Cellular Telephone System by Telecom Australia. Peter Reedman was the first Telecom Customer to be connected on 6 January 1986 along with five other subscribers as test customers prior to the official launch date of 28 February.

text: 2G – Digital cellular[edit]

text: In the 1990s, the 'second generation' mobile phone systems emerged. Two systems competed for supremacy in the global market: the European developed GSM standard and the U.S. developed CDMA standard. These differed from the previous generation by using digital instead of analog transmission, and also fast out-of-band phone-to-network signaling. The rise in mobile phone usage as a result of 2G was explosive and this era also saw the advent of prepaid mobile phones.

text: In 1991 the first GSM network (Radiolinja) launched in Finland. In general the frequencies used by 2G systems in Europe were higher than those in America, though with some overlap. For example, the 900 MHz frequency range was used for both 1G and 2G systems in Europe, so the 1G systems were rapidly closed down to make space for the 2G systems. In America the IS-54 standard was deployed in the same band as AMPS and displaced some of the existing analog channels.

text:
In 1993, IBM Simon was introduced. This was possibly the world's first smartphone. It was a mobile phone, pager, fax machine, and PDA all rolled into one. It included a calendar, address book, clock, calculator, notepad, email, and a touchscreen with a QWERTY keyboard.[38]  The IBM Simon had a stylus you used to tap the touch screen with. It featured predictive typing that would guess the next characters as you tapped. It had applications, or at least a way to deliver more features by plugging a PCMCIA 1.8 MB memory card into the phone.[39]
Coinciding with the introduction of 2G systems was a trend away from the larger "brick" phones toward tiny 100–200 grams (3.5–7.1 oz) hand-held devices. This change was possible not only through technological improvements such as more advanced batteries and more energy-efficient electronics, but also because of the higher density of cell sites to accommodate increasing usage. The latter meant that the average distance transmission from phone to the base station shortened, leading to increased battery life while on the move.

text: The second generation introduced a new variant of communication called SMS or text messaging. It was initially available only on GSM networks but spread eventually on all digital networks. The first machine-generated SMS message was sent in the UK on 3 December 1992 followed in 1993 by the first person-to-person SMS sent in Finland. The advent of prepaid services in the late 1990s soon made SMS the communication method of choice among the young, a trend which spread across all ages.

text: 2G also introduced the ability to access media content on mobile phones. In 1998 the first downloadable content sold to mobile phones was the ring tone, launched by Finland's Radiolinja (now Elisa). Advertising on the mobile phone first appeared in Finland when a free daily SMS news headline service was launched in 2000, sponsored by advertising.

text: Mobile payments were trialed in 1998 in Finland and Sweden where a mobile phone was used to pay for a Coca-Cola vending machine and car parking. Commercial launches followed in 1999 in Norway. The first commercial payment system to mimic banks and credit cards was launched in the Philippines in 1999 simultaneously by mobile operators Globe and Smart.

text: The first full internet service on mobile phones was introduced by NTT DoCoMo in Japan in 1999.

text: 3G – Mobile broadband[edit]

text: As the use of 2G phones became more widespread and people began to use mobile phones in their daily lives, it became clear that demand for data (such as access to browse the internet) was growing. Further, experience from fixed broadband services showed there would also be an ever-increasing demand for greater data speeds. The 2G technology was nowhere near up to the job, so the industry began to work on the next generation of technology known as 3G. The main technological difference that distinguishes 3G technology from 2G technology is the use of packet switching rather than circuit switching for data transmission.[40] In addition, the standardization process focused on requirements more than technology (2 Mbit/s maximum data rate indoors, 384 kbit/s outdoors, for example).

text: Inevitably this led to many competing standards with different contenders pushing their own technologies, and the vision of a single unified worldwide standard looked far from reality. The standard 2G CDMA networks became 3G compliant with the adoption of Revision A to EV-DO, which made several additions to the protocol while retaining backwards compatibility:

text:
Introduction of several new forward link data rates that increase the maximum burst rate from 2.45 Mbit/s to 3.1 Mbit/s
Protocols that would decrease connection establishment time
Ability for more than one mobile to share the same time slot
Introduction of QoS flags

text: All these were put in place to allow for low latency, low bit rate communications such as VoIP.[41]

text: The first pre-commercial trial network with 3G was launched by NTT DoCoMo in Japan in the Tokyo region in May 2001. NTT DoCoMo launched the first commercial 3G network on 1 October 2001, using the WCDMA technology. In 2002 the first 3G networks on the rival CDMA2000 1xEV-DO technology were launched by SK Telecom and KTF in South Korea, and Monet in the US. Monet has since gone bankrupt. By the end of 2002, the second WCDMA network was launched in Japan by Vodafone KK (now Softbank). European launches of 3G were in Italy and the UK by Three/Hutchison group, on WCDMA. 2003 saw a further eight commercial launches of 3G, six more on WCDMA and two more on the EV-DO standard.

text: During the development of 3G systems, 2.5G systems such as CDMA2000 1x and GPRS were developed as extensions to existing 2G networks. These provide some of the features of 3G without fulfilling the promised high data rates or full range of multimedia services. CDMA2000-1X delivers theoretical maximum data speeds of up to 307 kbit/s. Just beyond these is the EDGE system which in theory covers the requirements for 3G system, but is so narrowly above these that any practical system would be sure to fall short.

text: The high connection speeds of 3G technology enabled a transformation in the industry: for the first time, media streaming of radio (and even television) content to 3G handsets became possible,[42]  with companies such as RealNetworks[43] and Disney[44] among the early pioneers in this type of offering.

text: In the mid-2000s (decade), an evolution of 3G technology began to be implemented, namely High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA). It is an enhanced 3G (third generation) mobile telephony communications protocol in the High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) family, also coined 3.5G, 3G+ or turbo 3G, which allows networks based on Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) to have higher data transfer speeds and capacity. Current HSDPA deployments support down-link speeds of 1.8, 3.6, 7.2 and 14.0 Mbit/s.

text: By the end of 2007, there were 295 million subscribers on 3G networks worldwide, which reflected 9% of the total worldwide subscriber base. About two thirds of these were on the WCDMA standard and one third on the EV-DO standard. The 3G telecoms services generated over $120 billion of revenues during 2007 and at many markets the majority of new phones activated were 3G phones. In Japan and South Korea the market no longer supplies phones of the second generation.

text: Although mobile phones had long had the ability to access data networks such as the Internet, it was not until the widespread availability of good quality 3G coverage in the mid-2000s (decade) that specialized devices appeared to access the mobile web. The first such devices, known as "dongles", plugged directly into a computer through the USB port. Another new class of device appeared subsequently, the so-called "compact wireless router" such as the Novatel MiFi, which makes 3G Internet connectivity available to multiple computers simultaneously over Wi-Fi, rather than just to a single computer via a USB plug-in.

text: Such devices became especially popular for use with laptop computers due to the added portability they bestow. Consequently, some computer manufacturers started to embed the mobile data function directly into the laptop so a dongle or MiFi wasn't needed. Instead, the SIM card could be inserted directly into the device itself to access the mobile data services. Such 3G-capable laptops became commonly known as "netbooks". Other types of data-aware devices followed in the netbook's footsteps. By the beginning of 2010, E-readers, such as the Amazon Kindle and the Nook from Barnes & Noble, had already become available with embedded wireless Internet, and Apple had announced plans for embedded wireless Internet on its iPad tablet devices later that year.

text: 4G – Native IP networks[edit]

text: By 2009, it had become clear that, at some point, 3G networks would be overwhelmed by the growth of bandwidth-intensive applications like streaming media.[45] Consequently, the industry began looking to data-optimized 4th-generation technologies, with the promise of speed improvements up to 10-fold over existing 3G technologies. The first two commercially available technologies billed as 4G were the WiMAX standard (offered in the U.S. by Sprint) and the LTE standard, first offered in Scandinavia by TeliaSonera.

text: One of the main ways in which 4G differed technologically from 3G was in its elimination of circuit switching, instead employing an all-IP network. Thus, 4G ushered in a treatment of voice calls just like any other type of streaming audio media, utilizing packet switching over Internet, LAN or WAN networks via VoIP.[46]

text: Mobile device charger standards[edit]

text:
USB power standards for mobile charger

Port

Current

Voltage

Power (max)

Micro-USB

500 mA
5 V
2.5 W

1 A
5 V
5 W

2 A
5 V
10 W

Type-C[47]

100 mA to 3 A
5 V
15 W

1.7 A to 3 A
9 V
27 W

1.8 A to 3 A
15 V
45 W

2.25 A to 5 A
20 V
100 W

text: Before a universal charger standard was agreed upon in the late 2000s users needed an adaptor which was often the same brand as their phone to recharge the battery.

text: In China[edit]

text: As of  14 June 2007[update], all new mobile phones applying for a license in China are required to use a USB port as a power port for battery charging.[48][49] This was the first standard to use the convention of shorting D+ and D−.[50]

text: OMTP/GSMA Universal Charging Solution[edit]

text: In September 2007, the Open Mobile Terminal Platform group (a forum of mobile network operators and manufacturers such as Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and LG) announced that its members had agreed on Micro-USB as the future common connector for mobile devices.[51][52]

text: The GSM Association (GSMA) followed suit on 17 February 2009,[53][53][54][55][56] and on 22 April 2009, this was further endorsed by the CTIA – The Wireless Association,[57] with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) announcing on 22 October 2009 that it had also embraced the Universal Charging Solution as its "energy-efficient one-charger-fits-all new mobile phone solution," and added: "Based on the Micro-USB interface, UCS chargers will also include a 4-star or higher efficiency rating—up to three times more energy-efficient than an unrated charger."[58]

text: EU smartphone power supply standard[edit]

text: In June 2009, many of the world's largest mobile phone manufacturers signed an EC-sponsored Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), agreeing to make most data-enabled mobile phones marketed in the European Union compatible with a common External Power Supply (common EPS). The EU's common EPS specification (EN 62684:2010) references the USB Battery Charging Specification and is similar to the GSMA/OMTP and Chinese charging solutions.[59][60] In January 2011, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) released its version of the (EU's) common EPS standard as IEC 62684:2011.[61]

text: Satellite mobile[edit]

text: As well as the now-common cellular phone, there is also the very different approach of connecting directly from the handset to an Earth-orbiting satellite. Such mobile phones can be used in remote areas out of reach of wired networks or where construction of a cellular network is uneconomic.

text: The Inmarsat system is the oldest, originally developed in 1979 for safety of life at sea, and uses a series of satellites in geostationary orbits to cover the majority of the globe. Several smaller operators use the same approach with just one or two satellites to provide a regional service. An alternative approach is to use a series of low Earth orbit satellites much closer to Earth. This is the basis of the Iridium and Globalstar satellite phone services.


document_title: The Santa Clause 2

question_text: who played lucy in the santa clause 2

question_tokens: who played lucy in the santa clause 2

root

text: The Santa Clause 2

text: Plot[edit]

text: Eight years have elapsed since Scott Calvin took on the mantle of Santa Claus and became subject to The Santa Clause. Now he is at the top of his game at the North Pole and could not be happier, at least until Head Elf Bernard and Curtis, the Keeper of the Handbook of Christmas break the news that there is another clause — the "Mrs. Clause".

tag: p

text: Santa/Scott is now pressed to get married before the next Christmas Eve, or the clause will be broken and Christmas will fade away. At the same time, Abby the Elf delivers news that is more distressing: Santa's own son Charlie is on the naughty list, for acts including vandalizing the walls of the school gymnasium with spray paint, until he is caught by Principal Carol Newman. Scott must return to his home to search for a wife and set things right with Charlie. He brings this up when visited by the Council of Legendary Figures consisting of Mother Nature, Father Time, Cupid, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the Sandman.

text: To cover for Santa's prolonged absence, Curtis helps Santa create a life-size toy replica of Santa, much to Bernard's horror. However, this replacement cannot find any grace or slack in his plastic heart for minor infractions by children the world over, having followed the Handbook too strictly. Toy Santa takes control of the North Pole with an army of life-size toy soldiers. He thinks that everyone is naughty, and he plans to give the entire world lumps of coal.

text: Because of the impending end of his contract, Scott undergoes a "de-Santafication process" that gradually turns him back into Scott Calvin. He has a limited amount of magic to help him. Scott attempts to reconcile with Charlie, who keeps vandalizing his school to get attention. He and Charlie both face the ire of Principal Newman when Charlie defaces the lockers.

text: Charlie confesses to Scott how hard it is for him that Scott is never around like other fathers, and reveals the stress he is under to conceal the secret that his father is Santa. Scott vows to try harder as a dad, and he and Charlie reconcile.

text: After a few failed dates, Scott finds himself falling for Carol, the school principal. He accompanies her in a sleigh to the faculty Christmas party, which turns out to be dull. Using a little of his Christmas magic, Scott enlivens the party by presenting everyone with their childhood dream gifts. He makes a special presentation to Carol, and, with his last remnant of magic, wins her over and they kiss passionately. However, she balks when he attempts to explain he is Santa, believing that Scott is mocking her childhood, until Charlie manages to convince her by showing her his magic snow globe.

text: Curtis flies in to deliver the news about the Toy Santa's coal binge. However, Scott has used up the last of his magic wooing Carol, and Comet has eaten too many chocolate bars. With a little help from the Tooth Fairy, Scott and Curtis return to the North Pole. Toy Santa wastes no time in subduing Scott, but Charlie and a now-believing Carol spring him free by summoning the Tooth Fairy to fly them there. Scott goes after the Toy Santa, who has already left with the sleigh, riding Chet, a reindeer-in-training, and they both crash back into the village. With an army of elves, Carol, Bernard, Charlie and Curtis lead a snowball war to overthrow the toy soldiers. Toy Santa is reduced to his normal six-inch height, Scott marries Carol in a ceremony presided over by Mother Nature herself, Scott transforms back to Santa, and Christmas proceeds as it always has. Scott and Carol have a three month honeymoon to go on the next day. In addition, Scott and Charlie reveal the truth to Lucy, Charlie's younger half-sister (the daughter of Laura and Neil) about Scott being Santa Claus.

text: Cast[edit]

text:
Tim Allen as Scott Calvin / Santa Claus
Eric Lloyd as Charlie Calvin
Elizabeth Mitchell as Principal Carol Newman
Wendy Crewson as Laura Miller
Tim Allen as Toy Santa
Judge Reinhold as Dr. Neal Miller
Liliana Mumy as Lucy Miller
David Krumholtz as Bernard the Elf
Spencer Breslin as Curtis the Elf
Danielle Woodman as Abby the Elf
Aisha Tyler as Mother Nature
Peter Boyle as Father Time
Jay Thomas as the Easter Bunny
Kevin Pollak as Cupid
Art LaFleur as the Tooth Fairy
Michael Dorn as the Sandman

tag: ul

text: Critical reception[edit]

text: The Santa Clause 2 received mixed reviews from critics, garnering a 55% positive reviews on the film-critics aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The site's consensus is, "Though it's harmless as family entertainment and has moments of charm, The Santa Clause 2 is also predictable and forgettable."[2]

text: The Santa Clause 2 was nominated for Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film.[citation needed]

text: Box office[edit]

text: The film had an approximately $65 million budget and earned domestic a box office of $139.2 million, with another $33.6 million internationally.[1] It was the fifth-highest-grossing holiday movie.[3][4][5]

text: Soundtrack[edit]

text: Original Release Date: November 1, 2002

text:
1. Everybody Loves Christmas - Eddie Money
2. Santa Claus Lane - Hilary Duff
3. Santa's Got A Brand New Bag - SHeDAISY
4. Jingle Bells - Brian Setzer
5. Run Rudolph Run - Chuck Berry
6. 'Zat You, Santa Claus? - Louis Armstrong
7. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town - Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
8. Blue Holiday - The Shirelles
9. Unwritten Christmas - Unwritten Law & Sum 41
10. I'm Gonna Lasso Santa Claus - Brenda Lee
11. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town - Steve Tyrell
12. Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer - Elmo & Patsy

text: Home media[edit]

text: This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

tag: table

text: The film was released on DVD and VHS on November 18, 2003. It was re-released as 3-Movie Collection DVD set in 2007 and first released as a 3-Movie Collection Blu-ray set on October 16, 2012.


document_title: Credit rating

question_text: the credit ratings provided by standard & poor's moody's and fitch are intended to indicate

question_tokens: the credit ratings provided by standard & poor 's moody 's and fitch are intended to indicate

text: Credit rating

text: Sovereign credit ratings[edit]

text: A sovereign credit rating is the credit rating of a sovereign entity, such as a national government. The sovereign credit rating indicates the risk level of the investing environment of a country and is used by investors when looking to invest in particular jurisdictions, and also takes into account political risk.

text:
Country risk rankings (Q1 2016)[2][3]
Least risky countries, Score out of 100
Source: Euromoney country risk

Rank
Rank Change
Country
Overall Score

1
▲1
Norway
88.59

2
▼1
Switzerland
87.95

3
-
Singapore
86.49

4
-
Luxembourg
85.14

5
-
Netherlands
84.49

6
-
Denmark
83.87

7
-
Sweden
83.49

8
-
Germany
82.49

9
-
Canada
82.04

10
-
Finland
81.09

text: The "country risk rankings" table shows the ten least-risky countries for investment as of January 2013. Ratings are further broken down into components including political risk, economic risk. Euromoney's bi-annual country risk index monitors the political and economic stability of 185 sovereign countries.[4] Results focus foremost on economics, specifically sovereign default risk or payment default risk for exporters (also known as a trade credit risk).

text: A. M. Best defines "country risk" as the risk that country-specific factors could adversely affect an insurer's ability to meet its financial obligations.[5]

text: Short-and long-term-ratings[edit]

text: A rating expresses the likelihood that the rated party will go into default within a given time-horizon: 1 year (short-term) or above (long-term). In the past institutional investors preferred to consider long-term ratings. Nowadays, short-term ratings are commonly used.[citation needed]

text: Corporate credit ratings[edit]

text: Credit ratings can address a corporation's financial instruments i.e. debt security such as a bond, but also the corporations itself. Ratings are assigned by credit rating agencies, the largest of which are Standard & Poor's,[6] Moody's and Fitch Ratings. They use letter designations such as A, B, C. Higher grades are intended to represent a lower probability of default.

text: Agencies do not attach a hard number of probability of default to each grade, preferring descriptive definitions such as: "the obligor's capacity to meet its financial commitment on the obligation is extremely strong," or "less vulnerable to non-payment than other speculative issues ..." (Standard and Poors' definition of an AAA-rated and a BB-rated bond respectively).[7] However, some studies have estimated the average risk and reward of bonds by rating. One study by Moody's[8][9] claimed that over a "5-year time horizon" bonds it gave its highest rating (Aaa) to had a "cumulative default rate" of 0.18%, the next highest (Aa2) 0.28%, the next (Baa2) 2.11%, 8.82% for the next (Ba2), and 31.24% for the lowest it studied (B2). (See "Default rate" in "Estimated spreads and default rates by rating grade" table to right.) Over a longer period, it stated "the order is by and large, but not exactly, preserved".[10]

text:
Estimated spreads and
default rates by rating grade

Rating
Basis
Point
spread
[11][12][13]
Default
rate[8][9]

AAA/Aaa
43
0.18%

AA/Aa2
73
0.28%

A
99
n/a

BBB/Baa2
166
2.11%

BB/Ba2
299
8.82%

B/B2
404
31.24%

CCC
724
n/a

Sources: Basis spread from
Federal Reserve Bank of
New York Quarterly Review,
Summer-Fall 1994";
Default rate from study
by Moody's investment service

text: Another study in Journal of Finance calculated the additional interest rate or "spread" corporate bonds pay over that of "riskless" US Treasury bonds, according to the bonds' rating. (See "Basis point spread" in table to right.) Looking at rated bonds for 1973–89, the authors found a AAA-rated bond paid 43 "basis points" (or 43/100 of a percentage point) over a US Treasury bond (so that it would yield 3.43% if the Treasury yielded 3.00%). A CCC-rated "junk" (or speculative) bond, on the other hand, paid over 7% (724 basis points) more than a Treasury bond on average over that period.[11][12]

text: Different rating agencies may use variations of an alphabetical combination of lower-case and upper-case letters, with either plus or minus signs or numbers added to further fine-tune the rating (see colored chart). The Standard & Poor's rating scale uses upper-case letters and pluses and minuses.[14] The Moody's rating system uses numbers and lower-case letters as well as upper case.

text: While Moody's, S&P and Fitch Ratings control approximately 95% of the credit ratings business,[15] they are not the only rating agencies. DBRS's long-term ratings scale is somewhat similar to Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings with the words high and low replacing the + and −. It goes as follows, from excellent to poor: AAA, AA (high), AA, AA (low), A (high), A, A (low), BBB (high), BBB, BBB (low), BB (high), BB, BB (low), B (high), B, B (low), CCC (high), CCC, CCC (low), CC (high), CC, CC (low), C (high), C, C (low) and D. The short-term ratings often map to long-term ratings though there is room for exceptions at the high or low side of each equivalent.[16]

text: S&P, Moody's, Fitch and DBRS are the only four ratings agencies that are recognized by the European Central Bank (ECB) for determining collateral requirements for banks to borrow from the central bank. The ECB uses a first, best rule among the four agencies that have the designated ECAI status,[17] which means that it takes the highest rating among the four agencies – S&P, Moody's, Fitch and DBRS – to determine haircuts and collateral requirements for borrowing. Ratings in Europe have been under close scrutiny, particularly the highest ratings given to countries like Spain, Ireland and Italy, because they affect how much banks can borrow against sovereign debt they hold.[18]

text: A. M. Best rates from excellent to poor in the following manner: A++, A+, A, A−, B++, B+, B, B−, C++, C+, C, C−, D, E, F, and S. The CTRISKS rating system is as follows: CT3A, CT2A, CT1A, CT3B, CT2B, CT1B, CT3C, CT2C and CT1C. All these CTRISKS grades are mapped to one-year probability of default.

text:
Moody's
S&P
Fitch
Rating description

Long-term
Short-term
Long-term
Short-term
Long-term
Short-term

Aaa
P-1
AAA
A-1+
AAA
F1+
Prime

Aa1
AA+
AA+
High grade

Aa2
AA
AA

Aa3
AA−
AA−

A1
A+
A-1
A+
F1
Upper medium grade

A2
A
A

A3
P-2
A−
A-2
A−
F2

Baa1
BBB+
BBB+
Lower medium grade

Baa2
P-3
BBB
BBB
F3

Baa3
BBB−
A-3
BBB−

Ba1
Not Prime
BB+
B
BB+
B
Non-investment grade
speculative

Ba2
BB
BB

Ba3
BB−
BB−

B1
B+
B+
Highly speculative

B2
B
B

B3
B−
B−

Caa1
CCC+
C
CCC+
C
Substantial risks

Caa2
CCC
CCC

Caa3
CCC−
CCC−

Ca
CC
CC
Extremely speculative

C
C
Default imminent

C
RD
D
DDD
D
In default

/
SD
DD

/
D
D


document_title: Tax incidence

question_text: who pays the greater burden of the tax

question_tokens: who pays the greater burden of the tax

text: Tax incidence

text: Example of tax incidence[edit]

text: Imagine a $1 tax on every barrel of apples an apple farmer produces. If the product (apples) is price inelastic to the consumer the farmer is able to pass the entire tax on to consumers of apples by raising the price by $1. In this example, consumers bear the entire burden of the tax; the tax incidence falls on consumers. On the other hand, if the apple farmer is unable to raise prices because the product is price elastic the farmer has to bear the burden of the tax or face decreased revenues: the tax incidence falls on the farmer. If the apple farmer can raise prices by an amount less than $1, then consumers and the farmer are sharing the tax burden. When the tax incidence falls on the farmer, this burden will typically flow back to owners of the relevant factors of production, including agricultural land and employee wages.

text: Where the tax incidence falls depends (in the short run) on the price elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply. Tax incidence falls mostly upon the group that responds least to price (the group that has the most inelastic price-quantity curve). If the demand curve is inelastic relative to the supply curve the tax will be disproportionately borne by the buyer rather than the seller. If the demand curve is elastic relative to the supply curve, the tax will be born disproportionately by the seller. If PED = PES the tax burden is split equally between buyer and seller.

text: Tax incidence can be calculated using the pass-through fraction. The pass-through fraction for buyers is PES/(PES - PED). So if PED for apples is -0.4 and PES is 0.5 then the pass-through fraction to buyer would be calculated as follows: PES/(PES - PED) = 0.5/[0.5 - (-.0.4)] = 0.5/0.9 = 56%. 56% of any tax increase would be "paid" by the buyer; 44% would be "paid" by the seller. From the perspective of the seller, the formula is -PED/(PES - PED) = -(-0.4)/[0.5 -(-0.4)] = 0.4∕.9 = 44%

text: Graphical analysis[edit]

text: Inelastic supply, elastic demand[edit]

text: Because the producer is perfectly inelastic, they will produce the same quantity no matter the price. Because the consumer is elastic, the consumer is very sensitive to price. A small increase in price leads to a large drop in the quantity demanded. The imposition of the tax causes the market price to increase from P without tax to P with tax and the quantity demanded to fall from Q without tax to Q with tax. Because the consumer is elastic, the quantity change is significant. Because the producer is inelastic, the price doesn't change much. The producer is unable to pass the tax onto the consumer and the tax incidence falls on the producer. In this example, the tax is collected from the producer and the producer bears the tax burden. This is known as back shifting. Tax incidence or burden does not in any way depend on where the revenue has been collected. It rather depends on the price elasticity of demand as well as the price elasticity of the supply. Tax burden as seen refers to the people who pay the taxes whether producer or consumer and considers the societal effects that result. It is said to fall entirely on the group that bears the burden or who has to pay the tax.

text: Elastic supply, inelastic demand[edit]

text: If, in contrast to the previous example, the producer is perfectly inelastic, he will continue producing the same quantity no matter the price. In case that the consumer is elastic; the consumer becomes very sensitive and weary of the price (Melville 24). A small increase in the price of something leads to a large drop in the quantity that is being demanded. The imposition of taxes causes the market price to have an increase from P without taxes. It rises to P with taxes. In most markets, elasticities of the supply and demand are similar to the short-run and result in the burden of the taxes that has been imposed. The tax that has been imposed is shared between two groups and in varying proportions. In general, the group that will have a greater tax burden is the one that exhibits greater relative inelasticity (Prasad 49). When there is an increase in elasticity in one place, the demand for the quantity changes so that it can suit the different needs that have been set by the tax burden. Tax burden, therefore, varies a lot with elasticity in materials.

text: Similarly elastic supply and demand[edit]

text: Most markets fall between these two extremes, and ultimately the incidence of tax is shared between producers and consumers in varying proportions. In this example, the consumers pay more than the producers, but not all of the tax. The area paid by consumers is obvious as the change in equilibrium price (between P without tax and P with tax); the remainder, being the difference between the new price and the cost of production at that quantity, is paid by the producers.

text: Macroeconomic perspective[edit]

text: The supply and demand for a good is deeply intertwined with the markets for the factors of production and for alternate goods and services that might be produced or consumed. Although legislators might be seeking to tax the apple industry, in reality it could turn out to be truck drivers who are hardest hit, if apple companies shift toward shipping by rail in response to their new cost. Or perhaps orange manufacturers will be the group most affected, if consumers decide to forgo oranges to maintain their previous level of apples at the now higher price. Ultimately, the burden of the tax falls on people—the owners, customers, or workers.[2]

text: However, the true burden of the tax cannot be properly assessed without knowing the use of the tax revenues. If the tax proceeds are employed in a manner that benefits owners more than producers and consumers then the burden of the tax will fall on producers and consumers. If the proceeds of the tax are used in a way that benefits producers and consumers, then owners suffer the tax burden. These are class distinctions concerning the distribution of costs and are not addressed in current tax incidence models. The US military offers major benefit to owners who produce offshore. Yet the tax levy to support this effort falls primarily on American producers and consumers. Corporations simply move out of the tax jurisdiction but still receive the property rights enforcement that is the mainstay of their income.

text: Other considerations of tax burden[edit]

text: Consider a 7% import tax applied equally to all imports (oil, autos, hula hoops, and brake rotors; steel, grain, everything) and a direct refund of every penny of collected revenue in the form of a direct egalitarian "Citizen's Dividend" to every person who files Income Tax returns. At the macro level (aggregate) the people as a whole will break even. But the people who consume foreign produced goods will bear more of the burden than the people who consume a mix of goods. The people who consume no foreign goods will bear none of the burden and actually receive an increase in utility. On the producer side, the tax burden distribution will depend on whether a firm produces its goods within the sovereignty or outside the sovereignty. Firms that produce goods inside the sovereignty will increase their market share and their profits when compared to firms who offshore their production. And if the current mix of firms is tilted toward offshore production then the owners of firms will be burdened more than the consumers while the workers/employees will benefit from greater employment opportunities.[3]

text: Tax burden of a country relative to GDP[edit]

text: A country or state's tax burden as a percentage of GDP is the ratio of tax collection against the national gross domestic product (GDP). This is one way of illustrating how high and broad the tax base is in any particular place. Some countries, like Denmark, have a high tax-to-GDP ratio (as high as 48%, the highest in the world). Other countries, like India, have a low ratio. Some states increase the tax-to-GDP ratio by a certain percentage in order to cover deficiencies in the state budget revenue. In states where the tax revenue has gone up significantly, the percentage of tax revenue that is applied towards state revenue and foreign debt is sometimes higher. When tax revenues grow at a slower rate than the GDP of a country, the tax-to-GDP ratio drops. Taxes paid by individuals and corporations often account for the majority of tax receipts, especially in developed countries.[4]

text: Clarification[edit]

text: The burden from taxation is not just the quantity of tax paid (directly or indirectly), but the magnitude of the lost consumer surplus or producer surplus. The concepts are related but different. For example, imposing a $1000 per gallon of milk tax will raise no revenue (because legal milk production will stop), but this tax will cause substantial economic harm (lost consumer surplus and lost producer surplus). When examining tax incidence, it is the lost consumer and producer surplus that is important. See the tax article for more discussion.

text: Other practical results[edit]

text: The theory of tax incidence has a large number of practical results, although economists dispute the magnitude and significance of these results:

text:
If the government requires employers to provide employees with health care, some of the burden will fall on the employee as the employer will pass it on in the form of lower wages. Some of the burden will be borne by employer (and ultimately the customer in form of higher prices or lower quality) since both the supply of and demand for labor are highly inelastic and have few perfect substitutes. Employers need employees largely to the extent they can substitute employees for machines, and employees need employers largely to the extent they can become self-employed entrepreneurs. An uneducated population is therefore more susceptible to bearing the burden because they are more easily replaced by machines able to do unskilled work, and because they have less knowledge of how to make money on their own.
Taxes on easily substitutable goods, such as oranges and tangerines, may be borne mostly by the producer because the demand curve for easily substitutable goods is quite elastic.
Similarly, taxes on a business that can easily be relocated are likely to be borne almost entirely by the residents of the taxing jurisdiction and not the owners of the business.
The burden of tariffs (import taxes) on imported vehicles might fall largely on the producers of the cars because the demand curve for foreign cars might be elastic if car consumers may substitute a domestic car purchase for a foreign car purchase.
If consumers drive the same number of miles regardless of gas prices, then a tax on gasoline will be paid for by consumers and not oil companies (this is assuming that the price elasticity of supply of oil is high). Who actually bears the economic burden of the tax is not affected by whether government collects the tax at the pump or directly from oil companies.

text: Assessment[edit]

text: Assessing tax incidence is a major economics subfield within the field of public finance.

text: Most public finance economists acknowledge that nominal tax incidence (i.e. who writes the check to pay a tax) is not necessarily identical to actual economic burden of the tax, but disagree greatly among themselves on the extent to which market forces disturb the nominal tax incidence of various types of taxes in various circumstances.

text: The effects of certain kinds of taxes, for example, the property tax, including their economic incidence, efficiency properties and distributional implications, have been the subject of a long and contentious debate among economists.[5]

text: The empirical evidence tends support different economic models under different circumstances. For example, empirical evidence on property tax incidents tends to support one economic model, known as the "benefit tax" view in suburban areas, while tending to support another economic model, known as the "capital tax" view in urban and rural areas.[6]

text: There is an inherent conflict in any model between considering many factors, which complicates the model and makes it hard to apply, and using a simple model, which may limit the circumstances in which its predictions are empirically useful.

text: Lower and higher taxes were tested in the United States from 1980 to 2010 and it was found that the periods of greatest economic growth occurred during periods of higher taxation.[7][8] This does not prove causation. It is possible that the time of higher economic growth provided government with more leeway to impose higher taxes.