Mobile services arrive in the UK

The Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS) technology perfected in 1983 in the USA was sold under licence to other parts of the world. In the UK, AMPS was developed into a somewhat more sophisticated system called TACS - Total Access Control System. The advantages of TACS were that it allowed for higher numbers of subscribers and enabled transmitters to use lower power and achieve more effective re-use of frequencies.
TACS allowed direct dialling by and to users, and the mobile phones were connected to smaller, low-powered base stations so more calls could be made using the same number of frequencies.
Cellnet, (now 02) a then British Telecom and Securicor joint venture cellular radio service, was launched on January 7, 1985. It replaced the existing radiophone service operated by British Telecom (now BTplc). Its competitor, Racal Vodafone, (now Vodafone) was launched the same year. Both these pioneer mobile phone services operated on TACS in the 900MHz frequency range.