Östen Mäkitalo

Updated on Jan 14, 2024

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Nationality Swedish Name Osten Makitalo		Significant design GSM

Born 27 August 1938 ( 1938-08-27 ) Koutojarvi, Overtornea Municipality, Sweden Died 16 June 2011(2011-06-16) (aged 72) Education Royal Institute of Technology
Significant projects Telecommunication Significant awards H. M. The King\'s Medal

sten m kitalo interprets the 2010 trend report

Östen Mäkitalo (27 August 1938 – 16 June 2011) was a Swedish electrical engineer. He is considered to be the father of the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) system and many times the father of cellular phone.

sten m kitalo on the subject of innovation

Education and occupation

Mäkitalo was born in Koutojärvi, Sweden, and obtained a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), while studying for a time he employed as a training assistant and lecturer at the Department of Physics at KTH. He started his professional career in 1961 at Televerket (now merged with TeliaSonera), the Swedish Telecommunications Administration, where he developed the first expansion compressor for high-quality sound. In the early 1970s, he was accepted as a PhD student at KTH, with Tele Transmission theory as a major and a minor in mathematics. He was a visiting professor at KTH since 2005. He was the elected member of Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Research and inventions

Mäkitalo assisted the development of first ever first generation cellular system and was also a key figure in the development of GSM. Mäkitalo was the part of the group that developed the world's first countrywide paging system with the possibility of sending messages. In addition, he has partaken in the development of the technology for digital TV sound and digital terrestrial TV. Mäkitalo held about 20 patents, including one on a cellular system with roaming and handover from 1971 (the year after Bell labs applied for patent on a similar system). He was an honorary doctor at Chalmers University of Technology.