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A 'car phone' is a mobile phone device specifically designed and fitted into automobiles.
The car phone was once, in the late 1970s and 1980s, more popular than a regular mobile phone. However, since the mobile phone boom in the 1990s, when they became much more affordable, the car phone has suffered, as most people carry their portable mobile phone around with them, even in the car. Plus, hands free kits are now installed into cars, so the driver can talk and listen to a call while driving. There are a few car phones available in the UK as of 2006, including the Nokia 6090 and Nokia 810, for use with GSM networks. Motorola provides US customers with the m800 and m900 car phones, for use with CDMA and GSM networks respectively.
Traditional car phone service might now be called a 0G (zeroth-generation) service, where 1G (first-generation) is thought of as the beginning of modern cellular telephone service. In North America, car phones typically used the MTS (Mobile Telephone Service), which was first used in St. Louis, or IMTS (Improved Mobile Telephone Service) before giving way to analog cellular service (AMPS) in 1984. In Finland, car phone service was first available in 1971 on the zero-generation ARP (Autoradiopuhelin, or Car Radiophone) service. This was succeeded in 1982 by the 1G system NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephone), used across Scandinavia and in other often remote areas.
Older car phone systems utilize analog (AMPS) technology but they are still used in some countries including the United States. Since a traditional car phone uses a high-power transmitter and external antenna, it is ideal for rural or undeveloped areas where mobile handsets may not work well or at all. However, due to current Federal Communications Commission regulations, carriers must pay stiff penalties for activating any equipment that is not an E911 compliant device, such as analog.
Recently, upscale automobiles feature integrated, "hands-free" systems to utilize a consumer's cellular phone, via Bluetooth wireless link. The systems use an internally mounted microphone, and the car's audio system, and may feature voice activation and control.^[1][2]

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See also

★ Teleaid, automatic emergency call system

★ OnStar, emergency notification system

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