The 20th century was one of huge transformation shaped by war, peace and massive economic disruption. Together with motorization, electrification, and digitalization, the evolution of new technologies within telephony, and later mobile telephony, has played an important role in driving key technological advances.
Throughout this period, Ericsson Technology Review (ETR) has been at the heart of this change – spreading new ideas, opening possibilities for new technology paradigms, and documenting an impressive trail of technology leadership on everything from telephone exchanges [1] to extended reality [2].
100 years of innovating ahead of the curve
Timing plays a decisive role in the innovation life cycle. History is full of examples where it has sometimes taken decades before an inflection point occurs. Ericsson founder Lars Magnus Ericsson established this pedigree already in 1896 with the world’s very first wall-mounted telephones – years ahead of the rest of the industry [3].
The ETR archives tell similar stories: in the early 1920s, ETR showcases many early prototypes of concepts we now take for granted, demonstrating an intuitive insightfulness as to the wider direction of technological travel. Some of these inventions were brought to market by Ericsson; others were leveraged by competitors or jointly developed for the benefit of society.
Below, we pay homage to 100 years of technological intuition inside the pages of ETR and its ability to relentlessly scout technology trends years ahead of time.
First steps toward Bluetooth in 1924?
Most people today enjoy complete untethered freedom to walk and talk through a hands-free device without the constraints of a cord.
The problem with cords was addressed already in the first issue of the L.M. Ericsson Review [3] with wireless headphones marketed by Ericsson, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: One of the first prototypes of cordless headphones from L.M. Ericsson Review 1924. Bluetooth would arrive nearly 80 years later with the evolution of battery technology.
The headphones were praised for their lightness (0.4kg) but with battery technology lagging there was still one crucial piece remaining: a lightweight battery. So, with the requirement of a power cord, maybe the headphones were not entirely wireless after all.
When battery technology evolved in the late 1990s, Ericsson finally accomplished its near 80-year Bluetooth quest [4]. On the back of Ericsson’s invention of Bluetooth technology, a community of companies set probably the most widely used standard in wireless sound today.
Speaking in the rain...or even under the sea
During the late 1890s, Ericsson invented a watertight microphone [5], as shown in Figure 2. Today, we expect our phones to be (at least somewhat) waterproof, which has not always been the case. With the arrival of the R310 “shark fin” phone in 2000 (Figure 3), Ericsson led the way more than 100 years after the invention of the watertight microphone.
Figure 2: An early design of a watertight microphone (left) invented already in the 1890s.
Figure 3: The Ericsson R310 ‘shark fin’ mobile phone that appeared over 100 years after Ericsson’s early design of a watertight microphone.
In the mid-1930s, Ericsson even tested the waters in diving equipment with a range of field tests to demonstrate subaquatic communication, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Communication diving equipment from the Ericsson Review in 1935 [6].
Markets reject video communication in the 1960s
In the 1960s, Ericsson took its first significant steps into developing videophone capabilities, culminating in the first transatlantic video call in 1971 as shown in Figure 5. Despite the development of these early prototypes with enterprise markets in mind, all efforts would prove in vain with the markets showing a reluctance to accept such a breakthrough.
Figure 5: The first transatlantic video telephone conversation exchanged between Washington and Sweden at the beginning of December 1971 [7]. The photograph was taken at the COMSAT building in Washington.
It took 60 years and a global pandemic to largely reverse that reluctance. Today’s more integrated devices make for a much smoother adoption of video communication. In fact, having dedicated terminals may have hindered early market development. Now more than half a century later, everyone’s laptop and smartphone has these capabilities.
Figure 6: Video communication has become a common tool both socially and at work in the post-pandemic era.
Shopping on-the-wire in the 1920s: an early contender for e-commerce
Online retail has reshaped the world of commerce, not to mention adjoining sectors across the value chain.
However, already in 1926 [8] we begin to see its early origins in ETR – not so much online retail, more “on-the-wire” retail. As mass telephony began to gain a foothold, Ericsson was quick to point out the benefits of telephone networks as a tool to make retail easier and more convenient, as you can see in Figure 7.
Figure 7: In 1926, Ericsson was quick to capture the benefits of “on-the-wire” retail. In this example, market traders would use the telephone to place and receive fish orders remotely. Cod anyone?
Fast forward to 2000 and ETR [9] was already laying the groundwork for online shopping using mobile devices, among other predicted use cases, almost ten years before the evolution of the smartphone as we know it. Figure 8 illustrates some of those early predicted use cases.
Figure 8: By 2000, almost ten years ahead of e-commerce using a smartphone, Ericsson was already successfully predicting future use cases including mobile shopping and mobile banking.
Satellite communication: always in fashion
Non-terrestrial networks (NTN) became part of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standard in Release 17, establishing a strong foundation for direct communication between satellites, smartphones and other types of mass-market user equipment [10].
However, this isn’t the first time our industry has become enthralled by the prospect of sending satellites into space. A look through the ETR archives tells you that the interest has long been there.
Already in 1964, ETR [11] describes a transistorized carrier terminal for the transmission of 12 telephony channels on radio links along with TV transmissions from the US to Sweden, all in collaboration with NASA.
In the late 1990s, there were some attempts to introduce satellite communication to mobile telephony, with Ericsson producing a number of satellite phones. This was one of many stepping stones that evolved into NTN, part of the 3GPP’s Release 17 since 2022.
ETR brought such insights to a broader public, with an article dedicated to satellite communication with 3GPP technology [12], as Figure 9 illustrates. The article explains how communication service providers could cooperate with satellite operators to jointly create a global NTN ecosystem by enabling connectivity between terrestrial systems and satellite systems on the same mobile platform.
Figure 9: An overview of existing satellite systems from ETR, 2023.
Figure 10: A satellite dish on the island of Råön, north of Gothenburg, from Ericsson Review, 1964.
Harnessing Hollywood to demonstrate leadership
Marketing also plays a part in the innovation life cycle, ensuring emerging solutions align with market maturity. Throughout the years, Ericsson has even adopted an innovative approach to this, turning to Hollywood to demonstrate its technology leadership.
Ericsson’s iconic Ericofon (or Cobra phone) featured in several movies [13], as shown in Figure 11. While in the 1997 James Bond classic Tomorrow Never Dies, 007 could be seen driving his car remotely with his Ericsson JB988 cell phone (Figure 12).
LEFT: Figure 11: By harnessing Hollywood, Ericsson brought its innovations to a broader audience. The iconic Ericofon featured in several movies in the 1950s and 1960s. RIGHT: Figure 12: The Ericsson JB988 mobile phone played a starring role in the 1997 James Bond classic Tomorrow Never Dies.
Celebrating 100 years of thinking differently
Looking back at 100 years of insights, all successful innovation has a lot to do with technology; the rest is about timing and business development. With innovation, it is easy to be too early, especially in a large organization like Ericsson which is years ahead of the curve.
For more than 145 years, Ericsson has continuously sought to reinvent itself, exploring many broad, diverse and sometimes even unexpected business areas. In the 1890s, for example, most people would not be able to imagine a waterproof mobile phone, nor could they predict the success of Bluetooth in the 1920s.
The tracks of visionary thinking found in the ETR have built a culture of pushing boundaries to imagine the impossible. In the past 100 years, this impossible thinking has laid the foundation for the development of paradigmatic technologies such as mobile broadband, Bluetooth, video calling, immersive communication, non-terrestrial networks, and more.
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the contributions made by generations of skilled, innovative and insightful Ericsson colleagues within all domains required to facilitate this monumental paradigm shift.
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