Mobile phone mast plans met with protests - 09-04-2008 - 12:08

The construction of a mobile phone mast in south Tyneside has been met with fierce criticism from locals in the area.

An application has been made to the council by mobile phone company O2 to build the mast in Cleadon, which is near a nature reserve, reports the Shields Gazette.

Conservative councillor Jeff Milburn said: "It's ridiculous putting it in the location they want. This site is entirely inappropriate. Not only that, there could be all sorts of health risks involved because people live just a stone's throw away from where it's planned to go."

Galliford Try Communications, a construction service, has sent a letter to local residents on behalf of O2 explaining the plans.

O2 claim that the mast will improve the mobile phone service of 18 million customers.

A spokesman for O2 described the slimline monopole, which it intends to build, as a "very unobtrusive structure".

Galliford Try Communications is part of the Galliford Try group which is a holding company for businesses in construction and housebuilding.

SMS messaging celebrates 15th birthday - 03-12-2007 - 14:45

Today is the 15th anniversary of the first short message service (SMS), which was sent by an engineer at Airwide Solutions.

The first SMS message was sent by Neil Papworth to a colleague at Vodafone who was at a staff Christmas party in 1992, and read Merry Christmas, reports ITPRO.

Mr Papworth said: "I can remember the event, being there, typing [the message] in and getting confirmation that it had got through. Eventually the time came when we had to take the system down to Vodafone to plug it in and get it working on the live network."

He added that he was chosen to try out the text because he had been working on the interface and "it made sense for me to go down and do it".

The following year the first phone to phone text was sent by an engineering student at Nokia.

Airwide Solutions is now a provider of next-generation mobile messaging infrastructure and has been in operation for over 15 years.