by Mark Ollig
The
faces of many New Yorker’s displayed puzzlement and curiosity April 3, 1973
while watching a very unusual occurrence.
Martin
Cooper, Motorola’s Communications System Division general manager, was walking
down a street sidewalk in New York City, talking into what looked like a brick
being held against his head.
The
“brick” was a 2-pound cellular telephone handset with 20 minutes of battery
talk time.
Martin
engaged in a telephone conversation with Joel Engel, who was at that time head
of AT&T’s Bell Labs cellular telephone program.
AT&T
was the company responsible for developing the cellular technology being used
inside Martin’s newly created, never-before-seen portable cell- phone.
“Joel,
I’m calling you from a cellular phone, a real cellular phone, a handheld,
portable, real cellular phone,” Cooper recalled as being the first words he
spoke.
Cooper
said Engel did not speak for a period of time; I assume he was at a loss for
words.
Engel,
according to Cooper, was very polite and abruptly ended the phone call.
That
call from the first portable handheld cellphone made by Motorola, must have
really steamed Mr. Engel of AT&T, as Cooper recently stated Engel does not
seem to recall the conversation ever taking place.
Cooper,
also had a cellular telephone conversation with a New York radio reporter on
that day, 40 years ago.
Before
1973, Motorola had been manufacturing bulky, mobile radio phones used in cars.
Cooper
however, had decided it was time for individuals to have their own portable
communications device they could carry around with them.
Mr.
Cooper has said he was also influenced by the 1960s TV series “Star Trek” and
the use of the small, portable, hand-held, wireless communicator used by
Captain James T. Kirk.
The
original series Star Trek communicator was designed by Star Trek’s prop maker,
Wah Ming Chang.
And
with that, Martin Cooper and his fellow co-creators made the first truly
portable, cellular phone.
The
first (non-cellular) wireless, mobile telephone call using a telephone handset
was placed June 17, 1946, from a car in St. Louis, MO, according to AT&T’s
corporate website.
This
type of mobile telephone limited the driver’s telephone call being transmitted
by a single radio tower with no “hand off” to another radio tower. When a
driver traveled out of range of the tower, the telephone call was lost.
In
1947, AT&T’s Bell Laboratories revealed the technology model needed for a
better wireless telephone network solution using cellular technology.
Development
of cellular technology began in earnest, using computers and electronics,
during the 1960s.
It
wouldn’t be until 1977, that AT&T, along with its research and development
division, Bell Labs, created the first prototype cellular networking system for
widespread public use.
By
1978, AT&T began testing their new cellular telecommunications system in
Chicago, and Newark, NJ.
In
1982, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officially authorized the use
of commercial cellular networking services in the US.
The
chairman of Motorola, Robert Galvin, while in Washington D.C. during the early
1980s, was able to get one of Motorola’s new cell phones to President Ronald
Reagan. When shown the portable cellular phone, Reagan remarked, “What’s
keeping us from having this?”
Subsequently,
the White House decided against AT&T having a monopoly on cellular phone
manufacturing, and allowed open competition for portable cellphones.
In
1983, Motorola’s 16-ounce DynaTAC (Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage)
portable cellular phone, costing $3,900 (plus 50 cents per minute voice
charge), was first used over the new 1G (first-generation) cellular network in
Chicago.
Today,
you can buy an iPhone 5 that weighs less than 4 ounces, and costs $199.
It
seems to take about 10 years for each new generation of cellular networking to
be realized.
Looking
back, it was in 1992 that 2G was released, and 2001 that 3G networks appeared.
The
current 4G cellular networks have been around for approximately three years.
So,
it has taken us, more or less, 30 years to get to 4G.
I
wonder when we will begin seeing 5G cellular networking systems.
Reports
I’ve read say it will be another seven years, but yours truly feels we will see
5G become publically available sooner.
I’ve
become a bit nostalgic thinking about the first Motorola cellular phone I
purchased around 1987.
The
first cellphone call I remember making was to my mother; “Hey mom, I am calling
you from a phone without any wires attached to it!”
All
this writing about the first cellphone got me curious, so I checked on eBay and
found one vintage Motorola 8000M DynaTAC “Brick” cellular phone currently
selling for around $650.
“People
are inherently, naturally, mobile. They want to be able to move around freely,
and not be inhibited,” Cooper said during a TED (Technology, Entertainment and
Design) conference he spoke at about three years ago.
Today,
Martin Cooper is 84-years old and holds 11 patents in the field of wireless
communications, including US Patent 3906166 titled “Radio Telephone System,”
which he filed Oct. 17, 1973.
This
patent, showing drawings of the cellular network and his portable cellular
phones, can be viewed at http://tinyurl.com/d5nncet.
