Bernard Ghillebaert (born 17 January 1952) is a French telecommunications engineer and businessman, and former Chief Executive of Orange UK. He is importantly known for setting the telecommunication standards for text messaging in 1985.

Early life

He was born in

Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

, the principal city and capital of the

Alsace Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...

region of eastern France. He went to the École Polytechnique et de Télécom in Paris, and the Centre National d'Études des Télécommunications.

Career

He joined France Télécom in 1976. From 1982 he directed the GSM development and standardisation project for France Télécom. From 1988 he was GSM programme director for France Télécom Mobile.

Text messaging

With the German engineer Friedhelm Hillebrand, he created the standards for text messaging in 1984, resulting in February 1985 with the

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...

(Groupe Spécial Mobile) standard, also known as Global System for Mobile Communications for the

Short Message Service Short Message Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile phones exchange short text messages, ...

(SMS), now known as

text messaging Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile phones, tablet computers, smartwatches, desktops/laptops, or ...

. After the

Integrated Services Digital Network Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the digitalised circuits of the public switched telephone network. ...

(ISDN) standards had been fixed in the late 1970s, there were thoughts about making a public digital mobile communication network.

Mobitex Mobitex is an OSI based open standard, national public access wireless packet-switched data network. Mobitex puts great emphasis on safety and reliability with its use by military, police, firefighters and ambulance services. It was developed in ...

, a Public Access Mobile Radio network standard had been conceived in 1981, and put into operation in the mid-1980s. The cooperation programme between France and Germany was known as S900 (from the 900Mhz waveband, and was analogue) and was expected to be in operation by 1986. It was decided to create a digital mobile network, GSM, in 1984, and for this to be in operation by the end of the decade. A prototype digital system, DF900, would be in place before GSM was ready. The new GSM system would have a radio paging service. The Europe-wide Eurosignal paging service had been in operation since 1974. Germany introduced its

C-Netz The Radio Telephone Network C (German: Funktelefonnetz-C, abbreviated as C-Netz), was a 1G, first generation analog signal, analog cellular phone system deployed and operated in Germany (at first West Germany) by Telekom Deutschland, DeTeMobil ...

analogue mobile phone network in 1985, based on the C450 standard; it had a digital switching system and digital control channels, and could have implemented a short data message system. In a meeting in late October 1984, the French part of the DF900 project submitted a proposal for the ''provision of an enhanced paging service, with diffusion of alphanumeric messages to mobile users with acknowledgment capabilities''. The messaging system would be two-way, unlike paging systems. On 12 November 1984 at a meeting in London, this proposal became simply ''the transmission of short alphanumeric messages with acknowledgement capabilities''.

Orange

He was the Chief Executive of

Mobistar Orange Belgium (known as Orange) is a Belgian telecommunications company. It competes with Proximus and Base. It also operates internet and mobile services in Luxembourg through its local subsidiary, Orange Luxembourg, following the acquisition ...

from 1995, a Belgian mobile phone network. In November 2004 he became the Chief Executive of Orange UK, staying until November 2008.

Personal life

He is married with three sons

References

External links

GSM History

Telecommunications history
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ghillebaert, Bernard 1952 births French chief executives French telecommunications engineers Orange S.A. Engineers from Strasbourg Text messaging Living people Businesspeople from Strasbourg