@Mark Ollig
Southwestern Bell launched its mobile telephone service (MTS) June 17, 1946, in St. Louis, MO.
Using a centralized radio network requiring operator assistance, MTS connects calls between vehicles and the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
The system primarily targeted commercial subscribers such as trucking companies, newspapers, and taxis.
The mobile installation required two large boxes containing the radio transmitting and receiving units fitted in the car’s trunk, a two-foot roof antenna, and a push-to-talk handset.
Tests showed call quality as reportedly “perfectly clear.”
Still, the MTS system had a significant limitation: it could only handle three simultaneous calls in St. Louis and had a limited number of subscribers. Users had to wait for an available channel, similar to a shared telephone party line.
According to newspaper articles from May 1946, the service had a monthly $15 charge, $25 for installation, and 30 to 40 cents for three-minute local calls.
In 1947, Bell Labs engineer Douglas H. Ring proposed the cellular concept to support more simultaneous private calls.
This concept involved small, low-power cells with “channel reuse,” replacing single high-power radio transmitters covering large geographical areas.
Ring suggested creating a network of smaller cells, each covering about 0.6 miles, using low-power transmitters on specific radio channels.
Implementing this mobile network needed seamless handoffs between cells as users moved, a challenge being studied by Bell Labs engineers.
This cellular approach was quite different from using a single high-power radio transmitter.
Advancements in semiconductors in the 1950s and 1960s transitioned to solid-state components, paving the way for microelectronics and speeding up the development of cellular technology in the 1970s.
Motorola began prototype work on a cellphone in late December 1972, involving about 22 engineers led by Don Linder. The work merged technologies such as integrated circuits, antennas, and duplexers.
Martin Cooper, an electrical engineer and Motorola’s communications division general manager, attracted attention on Sixth Avenue, New York City, blocks from Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan, as he spoke into what looked like a brick held to his ear April 3, 1973.
This “brick” was a prototype Motorola cellular telephone handset around nine to 11 inches long and weighing roughly 2.5 to three pounds.
Cooper had envisioned a portable communications device that could operate from any location and has cited the Star Trek communicator Captain Kirk used (designed by Wah Ming Chang) as his inspiration.
Cooper used the Motorola cellphone (with a 30-minute battery life) to call Joel Engel, head of AT&T’s Bell Labs cellular telephone program.
Engel was leading Bell Labs’ development of the elementary architecture for cellular telephony.
“Joel, I’m calling you from a cellular phone, a real cellular phone, a personal, handheld, portable cellular phone,” Cooper said to Engel.
Engel was reportedly surprised by Cooper’s claim and responded politely, while some accounts suggest he was less than thrilled. However, Engel has since acknowledged Cooper’s calls’ significance.
While AT&T’s Bell Labs pioneered cellular technology concepts used by Cooper, Motorola designed and constructed the portable cellular telephone and its internal technology.
For this first cellular phone call in New York City, Cooper used a limited, experimental cellular network, likely with a single-cell site and a temporary base station featuring a radio transceiver and antenna on specific UHF frequencies connected to the PSTN.
It was a simple telephony system – similar to the cordless phones used in the 1980s, which had their base unit plugged into a modular telephone jack.
In 1982, the FCC authorized commercial cellular networking in the US.
The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, the world’s first handheld cellular phone, received FCC approval in September 1983.
The original Motorola DynaTAC 8000X was approximately 10 inches tall, 1.75 inches wide, 3.5 inches deep, and weighed around 2.5 pounds.
Ameritech Mobile Communications launched LINE ONE™ Oct. 13, 1983, the first commercial cellular 1G service in Chicago, using technology from AT&T’s Bell Labs.
The first call on the 1G network was made with a Motorola DynaTAC 8000X.
Widespread public retail sales of the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X began in 1984.
By 1986, I had a Motorola DynaTAC 2000X “bag phone” that worked on the 1G cellular network.
The bag phone used a touch-tone handset and had a small LED display that showed the dialed numbers (as red numerals).
It included a separate battery in the carrying case, a vehicle power adapter, and a magnetic antenna for the car roof.
My first call over the cellular network was to my mother: “Hey, Mom, I am calling you from a phone without any wires attached to it!”
I recall Mom being impressed at this and saying how phones had come a long way from the 1940s when she operated the corded switchboard in Silver Lake.
Today, at 96, Martin Cooper holds 11 patents, including US Patent 3906166, “Radio Telephone System,” filed Oct. 17, 1973.
Rep. Mike Levin of California recently named Martin “Marty” Cooper as “Constituent of the Month” for January of this year.
“You may not know his name . . . Marty is widely known as the ‘father of the cell phone,’” Rep. Levin said.
To view Cooper’s patent, go to the US Patent Office website using this link: .
Search for patent number 3906166, press enter, and then scroll down to find the display preview text or PDF link.
I find it ironic that Capt. Kirk’s communicator inspired Cooper’s vision of the portable communications device we now know as the cellphone.
As Spock would say, “Fascinating.”
