STILL with phones, Telecom's other partner is the Swedish company, Telia. A recession usually spells bad news for every business, but not so for Telia, it appears. During the last recession in Sweden, everybody was cutting costs, but Telia still benefited. How Companies were ordering their staff not to travel unnecessarily, so they had to use their phones and fax facilities a lot more. Obviously every business cloud has a silver lining somewhere.

Telia is one of the most experienced mobile phone operators in Europe and competes against several other operators in Sweden. In fact, they began in the mobile business in 1981. However, according to Bo Magnusson, Telia's director of international markets, the mobile phone was actually invented in 1955.

The apparatus weighed 40 kilos and an extra battery had to be provided. The service was quickly snapped up by 100 subscribers. Oh, and it used a rotary dial!