The idea of using the radio to connect vehicles or people in motion is as old as the radio itself. But for decades only the military and merchant marine and, a bit later, the big transport companies, utilized the radio with this scope; it was much more difficult to offer radio mobile service in the private sector at an accessible cost.

It is the 1980's when “cellular” telephony is launched in the USA and in Northern Europe (Scandinavian countries). This kind of system is based on a subdivision of the territory into “small cells”, similar to those of a bee hive, each of which is equipped with its own transceiver station. The user calling connects to the closest “small cell”, that retransmits to one at destination or to a telephone switching office, and “passes” the call to the next small cell when the user moves out of his range of activity. In this way it is possible to simultaneously manage thousands of calls.

From Northern Europe mobile telephony spread to the entire continent. In the USA, after a slow beginning (so much so that AT&T, after having launched it, abandoned the market in 1984), it had an equally intense growth rate. Today the first analogical system of cellular telephony (ETACS) has basically been supplanted by a digital system, extremely more versatile, the GSM; and new more powerful systems are already being experimented. The cellular telephone, in addition to vocal messages, also operates with written messages, consents faxes to be sent and, in more advanced models, allows Internet connection.

The idea of making the telephone (still at the dawn of becoming an instrument of communication between people) a true means of mass communication was first experimented in Paris with the Théatrophone, a service launched during the International Electric Exhibition in 1881, thus five years after Alexander G. Bell's patent, which allowed subscribers (about a hundred) to listen to live operas, plays and concerts transmitted from major theatres onto their own telephone set. By 1885 some imagined that, thanks to the Théatrophone, buildings would soon have «the opera on all floors» just as they already had water and gas.

A prediction that did effectively come true, but with different technologies. The main experiment of circular telephony attempted in the world was the one that took place in Budapest in 1893, the "Telefon Hirmondo", that counted more than 6,000 subscribers for its daily news service (predominantly) and entertainment. In 1910 an analogous service, the "Araldo Telefonico" (literal translation of the Hungarian name) was launched in Rome, and by 1914 it had more than 1,300 subscribers.

One might wonder why circular telephony, already making headway, was, in appearance, so completely supplanted by the radio. One thing is certain, that model of communication is not a pure historical curiosity: it reappeared afterwards (in the Sixties) under the form of broadcasting and, as of the Seventies, grew vivaciously under the form of cable television.