The Motorola DynaTAC, released in 1983, weighed in at nearly a kilogram, looked like a brick with an antenna, and was the world's first commercially available handheld cellular phone. In contrast, most modern mobiles weigh less than 100 grams and are designed with such flair that they're often coveted for fashion first and functionality second.

"Gone are the days of big, bulky handsets used exclusively as a business tool," says Grace Belmonte for Nokia Canada. "Today, the mobile phone comes in a variety of sizes, colours, with various features, and is used as a personal accessory."

In the past, the primary users of cellular phones were business people who simply needed a convenient means of communication. Now almost anyone could be a potential mobile user, from the kid at hockey practice who uses his phone to call his mom to pick him up to Paris Hilton who, according to the many Web sites that recently posted phone numbers from her hacked mobile address book, uses her phone to call Burt Reynolds and Donald Trump.

Select milestones in the history of cellular telephones:
1940s	Scientists begin experimenting with the idea of dividing mobile radio service areas into cells for more efficient coverage (hence the origin of the term "cellular")
1973	Motorola invents first handheld portable cellular phone... and makes the world's first cellular telephone call to their competitors, Bell Laboratories
1978	Bell Laboratories starts a trial cell phone system with 2,000 users
1983	The Motorola DynaTAC becomes first commercially available cell phone
1987	Number of cell phone users hits one million
1994	For the first time, features like paging, data communications, voice dispatch and wireless telephone are made available in a single consumer handset
2000	More than 300 million people worldwide are subscribing to mobile phone services
2002	First camera phones available in Canada
2005	One in two Canadians has a subscription to a mobile service
2007	Handsets will begin shipping with hard drives in excess of 10 GB, providing for the first time the potential for mobile handsets to become all-in-one multimedia, communication, and entertainment devices

Everyone wants a cell phone for a different reason. "Mobile phones are more than just tools to speak to one another," says Belmonte. "They're used to keep contacts, calendars, send text messages, connect to the Web, do e-mail, play games, listen to music and send pictures and videos."

According to Colleen McClure of Motorola Canada, one of the fastest growing mobile trends is handset personalization. "MP3, polyphonic and downloadable ring-tones; embedded and downloadable games and graphics; video and picture messaging... these features allow the user to personalize their phone and make it their own."

Choosing a unique ring-tone is among the most popular ways mobile phone users are personalizing their handsets. As testament to their popularity, market researchers predict that the downloadable ring-tone industry will crack US$500 million in North America this year, a massive increase from the paltry $68 million it garnered in 2003.

While it's amazing to think about how quickly the industry has grown and evolved, it's even more exciting to imagine where it might be headed. Cherie Gary, spokesperson for Sony Ericsson North America, provides insight into some of the expected innovations consumers will see over the next five years. "You can expect a wider rollout of UMTS," said Gary, referring to a relatively new mobile communications system with data transfer speeds that rival those of a wired high speed connection. "It's already available on 50 networks in 19 countries, and commercial networks in North America will begin launching in late 2005."

Gary also spoke about the arrival of phones with 10 gigabyte hard drives by 2007. "With that amount of memory, the handset [will be] in a position to replace other devices, such as portable music players," said Gary. "It's not a stretch to believe that by the latter half of this decade handsets will become all-purpose multimedia devices for many users."

But perhaps the coolest innovation to come is the use of fuel cells to power handsets. "Talk time will be measured in days rather than hours," said Gary of this futuristic technology, which uses compounds like methanol to exponentially increase the amount of power available for portable devices.

The technology may dazzle and draw us in, but it's the service providers that end up taking most of our money. In Canada, mobile service subscriptions started high, then quickly dropped as more and more people began signing up. Eventually subscription prices levelled off and didn't show significant change for several years.

Then along came Fido in 1996, a company that changed the way Canadians thought about mobile service with its non-stop stream of relatively radical plans, like the currently popular Fido-to-Fido package which makes calls made between Fido subscribers free. The key to Fido's success, according to company spokesman Patrick Hadsipantelis, was simplicity in pricing. "Fido launched with an airtime package of $40 for 400 anytime minutes," says Hadsipantelis, "which revolutionized the Canadian wireless market."

The most recent competitor for Canadian consumers' cell service cash is Virgin Mobile Canada, which launched in March this year. Owned by billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson, who has been bringing his eccentric business sense to a wide range of industries since the 1970s, Virgin is promising Canadians catch-free, no-strings-attached, zero-fine-print service.

"Virgin looks at industries that need to be shaken up, where consumers are getting a raw deal, and treats them the way they want to be treated," says Andrew Black, CEO of Virgin Mobile Canada. "Canadians are confused," Black continues. "There are over 300 rate plans, people can't carry over handsets to other service providers (yet), and there is a distinct lack of customer care. And then they get Œbill shock'; they find out that a service they thought was going to cost $45 per month really costs $60 or $70. It pisses people off."

Virgin has eliminated all of the hidden costs that typically jack up mobile phone bills, including fees for system access, voice messaging, call waiting, call display, and three-way calling. Consumers simply pay for talk time. If you don't use your phone, you don't pay a dime.

Other service providers have already announced their intentions to respond to Branson's bold strategy, but the long-term impact of Virgin Mobile's arrival in Canada is anyone's guess. Who knows what next year's phones will look like or what we'll be paying to use them? Let's just hope things don't evolve to the point where Paris Hilton can figure out how to protect her cell phone information. How else are we supposed to add Vin Diesel and Lindsay Lohan's numbers to our speed dial?