First GSM call was made 20 years ago today

Harri Holkeri, then prime minister of Finland, makes the world’s first GSM call 1 July 1991 in Helsinki, Finland.

This is turning out to be a week of anniversaries. We celebrated four years of iPhone earlier this week. And today is the 20th birthday of the first GSM phone call, which in many ways was the beginning of a new era in telecommunications and start of the global wireless revolution. GSM was adopted in 1987 as the European standard for second generation mobile technology. More than 4.4 billion people use phones based on GSM standard today.

Here is a video to show the first GSM call that was placed on the first GSM network built by Telenokia and Siemens – now Nokia Siemens Networks – for the Finnish operator Radiolinja, now Elisa. Nokia introduced its first digital handheld GSM phone, the Nokia 1011, in 1992.