This facility was only available on the Orange network (at that time Orange Thailand was closely linked to Orange in England). It really marked you out at someone different, although the cost of calls was HUGE.

However, the mobile has changed beyond recognition over the last 20 years but that is just the start of things to come in the next two decades, according to mobile communications expert Dr William Webb.

It is 2027. Your mobile is now much more than just a communication device - more like a remote control on your life.

You still call it a "mobile" from habit but it is an organiser, entertainment device, payment device, security centre and so much more.
On a typical day it will start working even before you wake.
Because it knows your travel schedule it can check for problems on the roads or with the trains, and adjust the time it wakes you up accordingly, presenting you with the best route into work.

It can control your home, re-programming the central heating if you need to get up earlier and providing remote alerts if the home security system is triggered.
It is your payment system - just by placing the phone near a sensor on a barrier, like the non-contact sensor readers in use today for example for paying for Mtero tickets on some underground lines, you can automatically pay for tickets for journeys, or buy items in shops.

Digital toolset
It is also your entertainment centre when away from home.
As well as holding all your music files, as some phones today are becoming able to do, it will work with your home entertainment system while you sleep to find programming that will interest you and download it as a podcast so they you can watch it on the train or in other spare moments.

NOKIA CONCEPT PHONE

It will intelligently work out what to do with incoming phone calls and messages.
Because it knows your diary, it will know, for example, to direct voice calls to voicemail when you are in a meeting, perhaps providing a discrete text summary of the caller and the nature of their call.
With its understanding of almost all aspects of your life, many new services become possible.
For example, a "good food" meal planning service could send daily suggestions for your evening meal based on learned preferences, previous selections made and the likely contents of the refrigerator.
The latter might work by uploading the bill from the weekly grocery shop and then removing those items it deduces have been used for meals earlier in the week or which are out of date.
With an understanding of location, the mobile can provide directions, alert the user to friends in the vicinity or update the family "who's where" map (a little like the device the Weasley's have in Harry Potter books) so that members of the family know where each other is.

SIEMENS 3G CONCEPT PHONE

Leaving home without your mobile, bad enough already, will become rather like leaving home without a wallet, keys, music player and mobile all at once - quite unthinkable.
And in the nicest, most helpful and useful of ways, your mobile will guide you through life.
Travel planner
So what will this apparently massive change in our relationships with our mobiles require in the way of new technology or extra expenditure?
Actually, surprisingly little.
Now that we have widespread cellular coverage, with high speed data networks in many homes, offices and "points of congregation" such as coffee shops, we have all we need to signal to the mobile.
What we do need is better mobiles and more intelligence.
Mobiles will continue to get steadily better, with higher resolution touch-screens, speech recognition that really works and much greater memory and storage capabilities.
Running on these mobiles, and also on home and wide