The first mobile phones looked like bricks and mainly sold to Young Upwardly Mobile Professionals - the 'yuppies' of the mid eighties who needed to be constantly in touch - or perhaps prentend they wanted to be.
But as more manufacturers entered the market - particularly Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola and NEC - prices began to fall. With the move to digital phones (GSM) in the early 1990s, reliability and reach also improved - while the telephones became ever lighter, smaller and sleeker.
Falling prices and 'pay-as-you-go' options brought mobiles within reach of new consumer groups; ordinary people who wanted a mobile for everyday needs - women and, from the late 1990s, teenagers and schoolchildren too - the latter now a huge proportion of an ever growing market.
The year that mobile phones really took off in Britain was 1999, when a new mobile phone was sold every four seconds. By year's end, more than a quarter of the population owned one. By the end of 2004 it was more than three-quarters with 83 per cent of the UK households having at least one mobile.
Falling prices and the introduction of pre-pay mobiles led to a huge explosion in mobile ownership, particularly among younger and less well-off consumers. The Pay-as-you-go tariff, with phone card top ups, has made it possible to give telephones as presents.
All-in schemes bundled with almost free off-peak calls have encouraged many owners to use the mobile instead of their normal landline telephone, simply because it's cheaper. And with people becoming more 'mobile-minded', calls are increasingly being made within households and families, with parents calling their children and vice versa.
The number of mobile phones in the UK has increased at an astonishing rate. Back in pre-cellular 1982, having a mobile phone meant you were one of the elite band of 10,000 users who could afford very expensive car phones. Now, in 2005 there are around 40 million mobiles registered in the UK, with handsets being bought (or replaced) at the rate of around 20 million a year.
Overall, however, market expansion is beginning to slow a little and vendors are beginning to report growing signs of market saturation, with almost everyone who is ever likely to want a mobile already owning one.
Now that total ownership may have peaked, analysts think that the amount of cash that network providers generate from each customer per month is likely to become the more important measure of future financial performance. The companies, themselves, are hoping that the arrival of new 3G handsets, which allow users to send and view pictures like text messages, will improve their sales.
Radio pagers were the original way to send text messages before mobile phones, but before they could send text even, they simply sent out a beeping signal to alert the owner that someone wanted to contact them. The owner had to telephone into the office to pick up the message, but it was the start of the 'available anytime' culture that exists today.
These three examples show how the pager developed. The pager on the right was one of British Telecom's (now BT plc) first models. It was a simple tone 'beeper' available in the early 1980s. The left hand model was an early message-sending device, which worked by a caller leaving a message with an operator who typed it and sent it out to the pager. The middle model was again a simple tone page from the early 1990s, but ten years on the design had become much sleeker. However, as technology moves on, the Radio Pager has fallen behind the mobile phone for people on the move.
In the 1980s, radio pagers were expensive items appealing mainly to business users - and salesmen. But by the 1990s pagers had become much more affordable and a lifestyle product with attractive designs to match. 'Beepers' shed their regulation black plastic coats and put on a new range of colourful alternatives in a variety of shapes and sizes.
The Swatch pager - built into a wristwatch - was not a success despite its novel concept as users were reluctant to replace their existing higher-quality timepiece.
The bright red model was branded with the 'United Colors of Benetton', which was at the height of its popularity at the time. The green and yellow model was available from Motorola.
Katherine Pell is a 30-year-old Museum assistant from Bournemouth and like most people of her age grew up with the phone as being an everyday part of life.
The advance of the mobile phone was a development that she grew up with, although she hasn't been tempted to into buying one for herself.
However, much to her surprise her mother has taken a plunge into the mobile world.
Play the audio clip and view the transcript to learn more. A new window will open.