Nordic Mobile Telephone is an analog cellular telephone network system originally developed and taken into use in the
Nordic countries (mainly
Finland,
Sweden,
Norway, etc). NMT operates on two frequency bands, 450MHz and 900MHz and provides common cellular features like roaming etc.
It was first introduced in 1981 and can be claimed to have started the mobile revolution in Europe and sparked the success of such industry giants as Nokia and Ericsson. It is rightly counted as being one of the first generation (1G) cellular networks. At the time, it represented a totally new level of connectivity and features and became a huge success in the Nordic countries. In a very short time, the network covered practically all of the Nordic land areas, even up to parts of rural Lapland. The system was taken into use all around the world during the next decade and is still being used extensively. It seems that the technology will enjoy an exceptionally long life time of active use.
Although digital cellular networks like GSM have widely taken over NMT's role as the standard cell phone technology, NMT networks are still being built and used in many countries. In situations where the need for wide coverage surpasses the need for high call concurrency, high audio quality and special services, NMT is still a good choice. Besides the obvious move to digital technology, it is probable that new systems like GSM were further encouraged by NMT's poor support for multiple competing operators in a single area.
In the early 1980's NMT handsets were still rather large and clumsy (the Mobira Cityman is a classic example) compared to modern handsets. But their size, features and battery life improved and the latest (possbily the last?) handsets by manufacturers such as Benefon are just as small, cool and colourfull as any others.