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I have a confession to make. I have 
an addiction. An addiction, millions,  

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if not billions of you also have... I'm hooked 
to this, my mobile phone. Mobile phones are one  

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of the most disruptive technologies ever created 
by mankind. We check those mini computers about  

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221 times every day and across the world, 
most people have access to a mobile phone  

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than a toilet. I'm Charlotte Kan and inquisitive 
Xennial. And in this episode, I am talking to the  

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man who worked on the team, who launched the 
first ever SMS service, in the UK and managed  

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to link the devices to the internet that was 
a watershed moment. His name is Ben Wood, he's  

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Chief analyst and CMO at CCS Insight and founder 
of the Mobile Phone Museum. Welcome to Xennials.

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Hello Ben

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Hey Charlotte great to be here.

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Well, I'm delighted to have you here on this 
podcast. Not only because you are obviously  

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very knowledgeable about mobile phones, but 
because your own professional biography,  

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the highlights of your CV really reflect the 
key milestones of the industry within the 1990s,  

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the decade really. So Ben, your journey in the 
mobile phone sector began in 1994 when you left  

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university and joined a slightly obscure company 
based in Newbury called Vodafone. Tell us more!

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Well, absolutely, I mean I, up in the mobile 
industry, which has become just such a important  

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part of my life by complete accident. I left 
university, I'd had a fantastic four years  

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there. I'd spent a year traveling by virtue of 
the benefits that we had of being able to go in  

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those days out to Europe and worked for a year. I 
was working for a technology company. I came back,  

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I applied to any company where I recognized 
the name in the hope of getting onto a great  

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graduate program and a funny little company in 
a small town called Newbury, west of London,  

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offered me a job on their graduate program 
and that company was Vodafone. But not only  

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did I end up working at Vodafone, I ended up 
working in a division of Vodafone called VOData,  

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which is the division that went 
on to launch text messaging and  

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the ability to connect to the internet on 
a mobile phone. So it was an absolutely  

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game-changing time in technology and I was 
extremely lucky to start my career there.

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It sounds like it was very exciting 
really to work on this pioneering  

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program. Did you have the sense 
at the time that you were working  

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on something very special that was 
possibly going to change the world?

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Mobile was exciting. Mobile phones are exciting. 
They were getting smaller, they were becoming more  

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accessible, more affordable, although still very 
expensive. But the important thing and the reason  

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why it was exciting was we were at the cusp of 
this transition from an analog to a digital world.  

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We were moving from the first generation one G 
analog technology to two GGSM digital technology,  

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which made it possible to, for phones to be 
much more than just something that you were  

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able to talk into. And it was the beginning of 
that transition from what I would call was a  

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voice interaction with a mobile phone, something 
you held to your head, to a visual interaction  

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with a device. And of course that just started 
with simple things like text messaging, but you  

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were going beyond voice. Did we have any idea what 
we were doing and what we were unleashing on the  

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world? Absolutely not. We had no idea what impact 
something like as simple as text messaging would  

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do in terms of its impact on society. And let's 
not forget now those mini computers that we have  

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in our pockets, those smartphones, they all rely 
more than anything on that internet connectivity.  

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And that was part of the technology I was on 
the team that was being launched at that time.

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Ben, in the 1990s and early noughties 
owning a Blackberry was the epitome of  

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cool. So what happened to the brand 
or the company and what does it show  

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about the history of the mobile 
phone industry during the 1990s?

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Well, I think it's remarkable. I mean if you look 
at the journey through the nineties, you started  

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at the beginning of the decade where you had still 
analog technology brands that people wouldn't  

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have even heard of now, like NEC were making 
mobile phones. There was a beautiful product,  

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the NECP4 for example, which was a really 
iconic product towards the end of the analog  

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era. Motorola was still massive. Ericsson were a 
big player, so there were these brand names which  

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now have virtually disappeared or certainly Nokia 
and Erickson have certainly diminished massively.  

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And then as you point out, we saw that evolution 
in terms of the design of devices. Blackberry as  

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a movement, Blackberry as a technology just 
started to arrive at the beginning of the,  

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or the end of the 1990s, and then it grew 
into this phenomenal entity and everyone  

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was addicted to this concept of having a 
quirky keyboard in your hands that started  

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very much with a business and enterprise focus, 
allowing business users to be able to unshackle  

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them themselves from their desks and be able 
to send email on the move anywhere, anytime.

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But then when consumers and absolutely the 
Xennials that you focus on so much, were able  

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to get this powerful device into their hands. They 
were able to send messages and BBM, the Blackberry  

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messaging service was phenomenally important as 
a way to communicate. But of course what happened  

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was the disruption of Steve Jobs coming along 
and understanding that the world was going to  

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be slightly different. You weren't necessarily 
going to have these very capable but Mac basic  

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devices available. You would have devices that 
were smarter. And he ridiculed the Blackberry at  

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the launch of the Apple iPhone in January, 2007, 
so it was sometime in the future, but he said, you  

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know what? You don't need that keyboard anymore. 
You just want a nice big screen. Use all of that  

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real estate and get rid of that query and use 
your finger as the stylist to drive that device.

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The two stories you have just been 
sharing with us of Blackberry and Apple,  

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the iPhone are very interesting because they 
reflect the fact that we start with a device,  

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a handset, technology, and it turns into 
a cultural movement almost, doesn't it?

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Absolutely. And there are other things to talk 
about as well. So Blackberry is one brand,  

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apple is another. But let's not forget in the 
1990s it was the ascendancy of the Nokia brand  

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and it was so dominant during that period that 
you didn't really talk about what brand of phone  

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you had. You talked about what model number you 
had from Nokia. Did you have a 2110 or a 3310 or  

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a 5110 or a 6610 or a 7210? Yeah, there were 
all of these different devices and Nokia were  

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very dominant and also very ambitious in trying 
to push the capabilities of the mobile phone  

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forward as well. So we moved into an era where, 
as I said, we moved from this voice to visual  

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interaction with the device. We started texting on 
devices, which led to Blackberry and being able to  

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type emails quickly and share information, but 
cameras arrived on devices as well. So we were  

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able to share moments in very different ways a 
picture can paint a thousand words. We started  

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to see the ascendancy of things like citizen 
journalism where everybody had a camera in  

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their pocket at some point towards the end of 
the 1990s and early 2000s, and they were able  

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to take pictures on the move. Quite remarkable 
and a game changer from a societal perspective.

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Ben, you are obviously very passionate 
about the mobile phone industry and that's  

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why you started this project, the Mobile 
Phone Museum. So tell us why decided to  

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gather this collection of old and unusual 
handsets? What was the genesis behind it?

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So it's really interesting because it's very 
much woven into the story of my career and  

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back when I was at Vodafone in the late 1990s, 
there's a transformation going on. The business  

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was changing, it had been very engineering 
led. There was still a function for that,  

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but it was becoming more marketing, sales, 
and business development. The offices we  

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were working in were changing, and in 
many of the offices that Vodafone had,  

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there was a little workshop where things would 
get repaired and things sold it together. They  

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were no longer needed. And there was a day while 
I was working in the office where one of these  

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little workshops was being dismantled. They 
were carrying everything out of the office to  

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put into the skip to throw away, and I saw this 
guy carrying out these big old mobile phones,  

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transportable devices from the 1980s, 
and I just said, don't throw those away.

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They're a very important part of social 
history. I'm going to start collecting  

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them. I started picking up these phones and 
I carried on collecting them. That went on  

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for obviously quite a long time. In 2012, I 
decided that I needed to think about how I would  

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present that project and registered the mobile 
phone museum.com, the main, and then later on,  

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I had so many phones that I really felt as 
though I needed to create an entity and set  

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up the Mobile Phone Museum charity as a way 
to safeguard that collection as a way to look  

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after all the phones that people had donated or 
we had bought. And also to create a charity that  

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could be a force for good in terms of telling 
that story, making sure people could see this  

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incredible design diversity, some of which you can 
see in the room here with me. It's all around me,  

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some of these amazing phones. But also to 
take some of that technology into schools  

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to hopefully inspire some of the engineers and 
designers of the future to understand just how  

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amazing the time they'd lived through and the 
innovation that we'd seen in mobile phones in  

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terms of the physical design and the services 
that they could offer had had on society.

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Ben, I do hope that one day you can reunite me 
with my first ever mobile phone. If I remember  

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correctly, my parents gifted it to me as a 
student maybe for Christmas around 97 and 98,  

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and having grown up in France, of course, it 
was an Alcatel one touch a yellow one I think,  

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and it replaced my pager because let's 
not forget, before mobile phone we had  

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pagers. Mine was a Tam Tam developed by France 
Telecom, of course. Do you remember your very  

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first mobile phone and how you felt when 
you received it or when you bought it?

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Well, the first mobile phone that I got to 
use was actually my mother's mobile phone,  

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which occasionally I'd borrow a Nokia one oh one, 
but my first mobile phone was the Nokia 2110, and  

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that still holds a very special place in my heart 
because that was one of the really breakthrough  

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devices on the two GGSM network. It was one of 
the first phones that could send and receive text  

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messages, and it was a phone you could connect 
to a laptop and you were able to connect to the  

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internet. So absolutely incredible device and a 
device that through its capabilities really does  

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tell that story on how mobile phones have changed 
the society we live in, have changed the future  

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direction of mobile phone technology and how those 
capabilities, particularly mobile data support,  

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has become such an important part of how the 
mobile phone and the smartphone is used today.

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Ben, could you reflect further on the contribution 
of mobile phones to society? They've had a huge  

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impact on us humans, haven't they? They've 
really reshaped societal norms and our  

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understanding of connectivity. So what's your 
take on this? How did they change the world?

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Well, the first thing that the mobile phone 
did, which is something to it is quite  

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intriguing when you think about it, is it's 
made communication shift from trying to get  

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in touch with someone at a place to being able 
to actually connect directly to an individual.  

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So before the mobile phone, if you wanted 
to ring someone, you'd ring a fixed phone,  

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people would have those in their homes. 
It would be in the hallway or the kitchen,  

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and you would ring that number, which would be a 
household or an office if you were trying to get  

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hold of someone and then you'd try and get 
hold of that person. What the mobile phone  

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did was transition that connectivity from, as I 
say, a place to a person, and it became a very  

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personal way of communicating. Then we saw the 
evolution into other areas and the mobile phone  

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has been a force for tremendous good, but also 
there are some downsides to the mobile phone.

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But in terms of the good things about the mobile 
phone, it helped the economy. It made it possible  

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to do business wherever you were. It helps people 
to socialize. You didn't have to worry so much if  

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you wanted to meet up, you could have a lot more 
flexibility and a lot more fluidity in terms of  

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planning things, ad hoc, catch-ups, those sorts 
of things became a lot, lot easier. But of course,  

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it also brought information to our fingertips. 
It allowed us to ... transform into now really  

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something that's the remote control for our 
lives. And think of all the devices that we  

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had in the early 1990s that have been replaced by 
the mobile phone, your Walkman, your MP3 player,  

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the handheld flashlight torch that you have 
in your hand, your maps. You don't have a PND  

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personal navigation device bolted into your car 
anymore. You can use your phone - it's your bank,  

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it's your internet connectivity. It does 
so many different things. The radio,  

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the TV of that has been subsumed into 
the mobile phone. So it has touched  

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every dimension of our lives in terms of the 
capabilities and technology that is delivered.

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Ben, you are not just the guardian of old mobile 
phones. You are always keeping in touch with new  

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developments across the sector. So I'd like you to 
tell us about new trends you have identified that  

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may be of concern or exciting ones. I mean, where 
is the future of the mobile industry heading to?

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Well, it's a question I get asked a lot and 
I get asked a lot in my main day job as a  

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technology analyst at CCS Insight, but it's a 
tough one because we had this Cambrian explosion  

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of innovation on the mobile phone, which saw it 
transition from the big brick that you spoke into,  

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this more capable device where you could send text 
messages, connect to the internet, had all these  

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other different capabilities. We then had the 
iPhone moment in 2007 and we moved towards this  

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dominant device of a black touchscreen rectangle, 
which I personally believe will continue to  

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persist for a very, very long time. Look at other 
products like the television, the washing machine,  

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the car, they haven't actually changed that much. 
Once that dominant design has been established,  

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now we are starting to see some quite exciting 
things in terms of design. So the advent of  

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flexible display technology, which is now allowing 
us to have phones with more interesting designs  

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that fold in half to make them smaller or can 
fold open to give you a tablet-like experience.

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But in terms of the underlying technology, 
obviously a very hot topic right now is  

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artificial intelligence and the way in which 
that's going to be able to enrich the experience  

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that you get on that mobile phone. And I think 
that that's an area we should be looking at  

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with some optimism but also some caution. I 
also think the intersection of healthcare and  

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connected technology is absolutely one 
of the most exciting areas that I see,  

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and I believe there's a real societal imperative 
that we go down that route, particularly with the  

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adjacent technology such as smartwatches, which 
are able to do things like constantly monitor  

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your health and look at your heart health 
or look at other aspects and in the future,  

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potentially new clever sensors that can track 
your glucose level or your blood pressure and  

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you can start to look at much more preventative 
medicine, which is something that I think is  

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going to be super, super important. And in 
terms of the mobile phone itself, as I say,  

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I think it won't change massively, but we will 
see other technologies coming along and smart  

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glasses as someone who wears glasses anyway, 
as something that excite me fantastically  

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in terms of vision to the ability to augment 
my life through images and information being  

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presented into my direct line of sight, albeit 
probably still connected via mobile phone.

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Ben, finally, as this podcast is dedicated to 
Xennials, this microgeneration between Generation  

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X and millennials, I was wondering if you miss 
anything about the pre-mobile phone world?

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I look at the pre-mobile phone world and there are 
things that I miss. One, I miss the fact that the  

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mobile phone didn't exist to some extent, that 
it's become such a distraction in our lives and  

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I'm more guilty of that than anyone. So I find 
it very, very difficult to put my phone down. I  

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find it very, very difficult to disconnect and 
I really should try and work harder at that.  

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This whole concept of a bit of a digital detox 
is something that we could all learn something  

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from. I also think that there have been some 
aspects of society that have been diminished  

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to some extent. So much as I said earlier, that 
I think that the mobile phone has given us some  

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freedom for ad hoc meetings and those sorts of 
things, like seeing people whenever you want.  

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I also think it's made people a little bit lazy 
and things like timekeeping, people don't worry  

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about as much because they go, well, I'll just 
ring them and say I'm going to be a bit late.

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And I think it's created some of that laziness. 
The other thing is I do think for younger people  

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it's put a kind of barrier between in-person 
interaction and that personal connection you  

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get. I always recall things like if I 
wanted to go and play with my friends in  

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the pre-mobile phone era, I'd have to go round 
to their house, I'd have to knock on the door,  

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I'd probably have to have some kind of interaction 
with their parents and then actually talk to them.  

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And it was very good from a kind of personal 
development perspective. Whereas now I could  

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just be standing outside the house, 
drop them a WhatsApp message and say,  

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I'm outside, and off you go. You lose some of 
those little moments that as I was growing up,  

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were very kind of important in shaping 
how my outlook on life develops.

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Alright, so it's time now for a Xennial quiz.

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Okay, so Ben, your favorite album of the Nineties?

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This was really tough, but the one I'm 
going to go for is U2's Achtung Baby,  

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which was right at the beginning of the 1990s. I 
was lucky enough to see U2 several times during  

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the nineties and I was just blown away with 
what they delivered with the Acting Baby album  

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and Zoo TV later on, both of which delivered a 
kind of visual overload of experience going to  

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a concert and just music that really excited 
me and I really still love listening to now.

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Your favorite film of the Nineties.

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So having picked an album from the beginning of 
the Nineties, I'm going to go right to the end  

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of the nineties and say that my favorite film is 
The Matrix. And the reason I love the Matrix is  

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obviously it's an amazing technology film. It 
is probably the film that is the best example  

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of explaining why artificial intelligence is 
absolutely terrifying because obviously it  

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was an artificial inte, sentient being that 
created the Matrix and enslaved the human  

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race. But it also features some very iconic 
moments with a mobile phone, the Nokia 2110,  

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which obviously intersects very well 
with one of my own personal passions.

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Hold on, Ben, don't go too fast because next  

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I'm going to ask you about your 
favorite gadget of the Nineties.

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This was really hard because I was trying 
to think about a gadget that wasn't a phone,  

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but I have to go back to the gadget that changed 
my life, professionally, shaped my career, helped  

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me gather an interest in the technology, which has 
gone on to be so good to me was the Nokia 2110,  

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the phone I spoke about earlier, which was that 
first phone with text messaging and data support.  

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And honestly it shaped so much that's gone on 
in the future that I really think that's the one

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Your favorite book of the Nineties.

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I've got such an embarrassing answer for this,  

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Charlotte, which is I didn't read any 
books in the 1990s. I'm just not...

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I was going to ask you, Ben. I was going to say, 
with all the time you were spending on that Nokia,  

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did you have any time for reading? 
That is a shocking reply. Come on!

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It's an absolutely shameful response. And 
honestly, I didn't read any books. I am  

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absolutely, I even had a look to see 
what were the big books of the 1990s,  

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and I think there might've even been some Harry 
Potter or stuff like that in there as well. I  

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dunno what your other guests have necessarily 
chosen, but I didn't read any books in the 1990s.  

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I have had my life transformed by the audio book 
and I have read in inverted commas, more books in  

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the last five years than in my entire life. And 
it's been fantastic. I love it. And it's another  

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example of technology making my life easier, but 
I just didn't read any books. Isn't that shameful?

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It is indeed. I'd like to say otherwise, but 
no, but you've redeemed yourself by the sound  

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of it in the last five years. Alright, let's 
move on then. One word to describe the 1990s.

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Well, I'm going to cheat here because I'm going 
to have several words, but I'm going to say when  

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I first thought about this, I was thinking 
about words of the decade and the first word  

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that strung into mind was wicked because that 
seemed to be a word that was, oh, it's wicked.  

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That was always something. That was a term that 
was used in the 1990s and another one was sorted,  

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which was also a word that seemed to be very 
popular in the 1990s. But my sensible answer  

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to your question is optimistic. What an 
amazing decade. What an amazing decade  

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for me. I started as a student, I jumped 
into an amazing career in technology,  

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which has given me a career which has spanned 
multiple decades now. And I ended up at the  

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end of the 1990s having successfully got a 
degree, started an amazing job, had another job,  

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and become a homeowner. It doesn't get better than 
that. So optimistic is the word I'm going for.

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Well, I like this very much. 
Was it a good decade, Ben,  

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the best ever, have things changed for the worse?

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I think it was a fantastic decade. I mean, for me 
personally, it was a phenomenal decade. And as you  

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are discovering and you are sharing and you are 
helping people learn about what a transformational  

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decade as well, that shift from an analog to a 
digital world is just something that is very,  

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very hard to explain to people who weren't 
born and weren't living in that time. And I  

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think it's remarkable. Who knows whether we are 
entering a new era now with new technologies,  

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with artificial intelligence, very hot topic 
right now with everything that's being discussed  

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in the media and everything else. Could that 
be another revolutionary time? But for me,  

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the nineties I think is almost a 
forgotten decade and I think it's a  

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wonderful decade and I'm so pleased 
that I was able to be part of it.

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Well, Ben, thank you so much for 
your contribution. Thank you.

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Thank you so much, Charlotte. It's been an 
absolute pleasure to be with you. Fantastic  

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topics. What a wonderful decade to reminisce on 
and really hope I can join you again in future.

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00:23:56,920 --> 00:23:59,520
Absolutely. Thank you. So that was Ben Wood,  

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Chief Analyst and CMO at CCS Insight 
and founder of the Mobile Phone Museum.