especially Eastern Europe continued running these networks for much longer. The last operating 1G network was closed down in Russia in 2017. Adoption After Japan, the earliest commercial cellular networks launched in 1981 in Sweden, Norway and Saudi Arabia, followed by Denmark, Finland and Spain in 1982, the U.S. in 1983 and Hong Kong, South Korea, Austria and Canada in 1984. By 1986 networks had also launched in Tunisia, Malaysia, Oman, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, United Kingdom, West Germany, France, South Africa, Israel, Thailand, Indonesia, Iceland, Turkey, the Virgin Islands and Australia. Generally, African countries were slower to take up 1G networks, while Eastern European were among the last due to the political situation. In Europe, the United Kingdom had the largest number of cellular subscribers as of 1990 numbering 1.1 million, while the second largest market was Sweden with 482 thousand. Although Japan was the first country with a nationwide cellular network, the number of users was significantly lower than other developed economies with a penetration rate of only 0.15 percent in 1989. As of January 1991, the highest penetration rates were in Sweden and Finland with both countries above 50 percent closely followed by Norway and Iceland. The United States had a rate of 21.2 percent. In most other European countries it was below 10 percent. 1G standards Analogue cellular technologies that were used were: Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) Total Access Communication System (TACS) developed in the United Kingdom and also some other parts of the world C-450 developed in West Germany and also adopted in Portugal and South Africa Radiocom 2000 in France (France Telecom only) RTMI in Italy MCS-L1 and MCS-L2 (developed by NTT) in Japan JTACS (a variant of TACS operated by Daini Denden Planning, Inc. (DDI)) in Japan See also List of mobile phone generations 2G 3G 3.5G 4G 4.5G 5G Wireless Application Protocol Wireless device radiation and health References Bibliography External links Glossary: 1G - First Generation wireless technology Glossary: Detailed Description on 1G Technology Mobile telecommunications Japanese inventions Wireless communication systems