When Alexander Graham Bell invented phone in 1876, using just a wooden stand, a funnel, a cup of acid, and some copper wire, no one could imagine that some decades later, this device could have a pocket size enabled it to be transferred even between countries, receiving and transmitting signal that allows users to communicate oral, written, or even by video signals almost in every place of the planet.

The beginning happened with the first radio telephone in 1880, an idea that inspired the invention of the car radiophone some years later.

Officially, the roots of wireless telephony can be traced back in 1940’s after the World War II. The beginning of the mobile phones had come with the “automobile rigs” (an amateur communications system between a base station and a portable). This form of mobile phones firstly applied in vehicles as police cruisers and taxicab radios.

However, the basic concept of cellular phones came in 1947 when researchers looked at mobile (car) phones and realized that by using small cells (range of service area) with frequency reuse they could increase the traffic capacity of mobile phones substantially. In December of the same year two engineers of “Bell Labs”, W. Rae Young and D.H. Ring proposed the use of hexagonal cells while Philip Porter recommended that the cell towers should be placed at the corners of the hexagons. Also, he recommended the directional antennas so as to receive and transmit in three directions. These technological discoveries suggested but didn’t apply until 1960’s that Richard Frenkiel and Joe Engel developed the electronics, giving a boost to cellular phone technology.

In 1967, mobile phone was a matter of fact but without comprising a complete “perfect” network since the users had to stay within a cell area (which actually serviced by one base station) throughout the phone call, otherwise they could loose the signal.

The problem solved in 1970 when Amos Edward Joel, an engineer again of Bell Labs, invented an automatic system that enabled mobile phones to move through the cell areas without loosing the signal. Next year was made the proposal for a cellular service to the Federal Communications Commission, the approval of which came one decade later, in 1982 and was allowed the creation of an advanced mobile phone service that allocated frequencies in the 824-894MHz band.

The first fully automatic mobile phone system called “Mobile Telephone System A” (MTA) and was developed by Ericsson that had commercially released it in 1956. It didn’t require of any manual control but it wasn’t applicative since it weighted 40kg. “Mobile Phone System B” (MTB) was the next version with transistors that used dual-tone, multi-frequency signalling and weighted 9kg. This introduced in 1965.

After the successful public commercial mobile phone networks in Finland in 1971, known as ARP, came in 1973 the first Motorola DynaTac prototype, made by Martin Cooper. Nonetheless, the first “commercially available” mobile phone was the Motorola Dyna Tac 8000X.

Mobile phones began to proliferate during 1980’s, based on the cellular networks which had even more multiple base stations that located close to each other. These first phones were much bigger than what we know today.

In 1990, an upgrade version of mobile phone systems introduced, such as GSM, IS-136 and iDEN. They were characterized by digital circuit switched transmission plus advanced and fast phone to network signalling. The new devices were lighter, weighted 100-200gr, an improvement that technology made it possible by the development of more advanced batteries and more energy efficient electronics.  The first digital cellular phone was made in U.S the same year while one year later opened in Europe the first GSM network.

Since then, mobile phone industry and technology have made a great stride, creating even more advanced devices that can be used even as mobile computers with access to the internet. Today hundreds of millions of people use mobile phones worldwide.

Tag: Mobile phones