Nordic Mobile Telephone – Wikiwand

NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephony) is an automatic cellular phone system specified by Nordic telecommunications administrations (PTTs) and opened for service on 1 October 1981. NMT is based on analogue technology (first generation or 1G) and two variants exist: NMT-450 and NMT-900. The numbers indicate the frequency bands used. NMT-900 was introduced in 1986 and carries more channels than the older NMT-450 network.

Mobile telephone system

The Mobira Cityman 150, Nokia’s NMT-900 mobile phone from 1989 (left), compared to the dual-band GSM Nokia 1100 phone from 2003.

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The NMT specifications were free and open, allowing many companies to produce NMT hardware and pushing prices down. The success of NMT was important to Nokia (then Mobira) and Ericsson. First Danish implementers were Storno (then owned by General Electric, later taken over by Motorola) and AP (later taken over by Philips). Initial NMT phones were designed to mount in the trunk of a car, with a keyboard/display unit at the driver’s seat. “Portable” versions existed, though they were still bulky, and with battery life a big problem. Later models such as Benefon’s were as small as 100 mm (3.9 inches) and weighed only about 100 grams.