An umbrella term for non-stationary telephone service such as in a moving vehicle. Two-way radios were conceived shortly after the turn of the 20th century and were in use during World War I. Police patrol car systems began in the 1920s in the U.S. with proprietary two-way radio systems proliferating for various purposes over the next 50 years. General-purpose cellular systems came on the scene in 1979 in Japan, followed by the U.S., Canada and Europe in the early 1980s. See
cellular generations and
wireless broadband.