Doctor Thomas Haug is an Electrical Engineer, known for development of the cellular telephone networks.
Education
Haug received a master"s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University of Norway in Trondheim in 1951, and a degree of Licentiate from Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan -- corresponding to a Doctor of Philosophy -- from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 1973.
Career
Haug worked at the Ericsson group in Stockholm and with Westinghouse in Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America, primarily on radio projects. In 1966 Haug joined the Swedish Board of Telecommunications where, together with Östen Mäkitalo and lead the joint Nordic project for cellular communications called the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) system. NMT was an analog mobile phone system commercialized in 1980 in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Nordic countries through 1982, reaching 1 million subscribers in 1990.
The NMT system enabled roaming among countries and lead the way to the common European System (Group Special Mobile).
Thomas Haug chaired the steering committee of experts that standardized the Group Special Mobile system. Haug"s personal contributions included introducing features such as SIM cards and SMS messaging.
Haug remained chair of the standards work through 1992 when Group Special Mobile was introduced to the market. Group Special Mobile and its progeny (UMTS and LTE) is the world"s leading mobile air interface with networks operating in more than 220 countries.