On April 3, 1973, the head of the Motorola mobile unit, Martin Cooper, strolling through the center of Manhattan, decided to call his cell phone. Passers-by were very surprised and did not understand what was happening: until the appearance of commercial cellular telephony there were still 10 years.
March 6, 1983 was released the world's first commercial portable cell phone. On this day, Motorola introduced the DynaTAC 8000X - the result of 15 years of development, for which more than $ 100 million was spent. The phone weighed 794 grams and measured 33 x 4.4 x 8.9 cm. The battery of the first mobile phone with LED display was enough for 8 hours of standby or hours of talk time. The phone was the first to be certified for commercial use by the US Federal Communications Commission.At retail, the novelty cost fabulous money - $ 3.995. However, according to representatives of Motorola, even despite the high price, the very idea of being always in touch was so encouraging to users that thousands of Americans were enrolled in the queue for the purchase of DynaTAC 8000X.
Prehistory
The idea of cellular telephone communication appeared at the company AT & T Bell Labs in 1946. Then this company created the world's first radiotelephone service: it was a hybrid of a telephone and a radio transmitter - with the help of a radio station installed in the car, it was possible to transmit a signal to the automatic telephone exchange and make an ordinary phone call. The call to the radiotelephone was made in a much more complicated way: the subscriber had to call the telephone exchange and give the telephone number set in the car. Говорить одновременно было невозможно: связь происходила как в обычных радиостанциях того времени - для того чтобы говорить, надо было нажать кнопку и отпустить ее, чтобы услышать ответное сообщение. Возможности радиотелефонов были ограничены: мешали помехи и небольшой радиус действия радиостанции.
AT & T, which offered Americans renting car radio stations, decided to develop cell phones in the same style. The device weighing about 12 kg was placed in the trunk of the car, the control panel and the tube were taken out into the cabin, and for the antenna it was necessary to hole the roof of the car. But this device worked, and its owners did not have to carry weights in their hands.
Until the early 1960s, many companies refused to conduct research in the field of cellular communications, because they came to the conclusion that, in principle, it was impossible to create a compact cellular phone. They were also stopped by the experience of AT & T, which in 1947 created a system of "road service" - it offered radio phones to businessmen and drivers who constantly traveled between New York and Boston. After five years of work, this service was closed due to a lack of customers. Networks of radiotelephones were established in a number of US cities, but in most cases they did not achieve significant commercial success.
About ten years, AT & T Bell Labs and Motorola conducted the research in parallel. Motorola was able to quickly succeed and won. For the development of the first model of a cellular phone, it spent 15 years and a huge amount - $ 100 million. In April 1973, engineer Martin Cooper, a Motorola employee, called New York's street to the office of AT & T Bell Labs and asked for a phone to the head of the research department of Joel Engel . Cooper was holding the first sample of an active mobile phone and was standing near the first cellular antenna installed on one of the New York skyscrapers.
After that, Cooper went to a press conference, organized by Motorola, to report on the success of the journalists. This was the first call made from a cell phone and, in fact, it was the beginning of a new era in the field of telecommunications.
True to the portable device is a motorola child was not very similar. As Martin Cooper recalls, he made that historic call with a phone that looked like a brick. Height 25 cm, thickness and width of about 5 cm. The world's first "mobile" weighed about a kilogram - Cooper claims that the constant wearing of it in his hands greatly strengthened his muscles.
The technique was clearly unfinished. But its creators had to hurry. The Federal Communications Commission of the United States has already considered the draft regulations governing the nascent cellular telephony. On the agenda was the issue of allocating frequencies, a discussion ensued about permissible capacities. Motorola executives were very much afraid that everything would be done for the needs of AT & T. They had to show that "pedestrian" cellular telephony already exists, that they are also players on the market.
So, let's repeat. April 3, 1973, walking through the streets of Manhattan, Martin Cooper made several calls. Who do you think he called first? Of course, competitors.
"It was one guy from AT & T who promoted phones for cars," Cooper says. "His name was Joel Angel." I called him and told him that I was calling from the street with a real "hand" cell phone.. I do not remember what he said. But you know, I heard his teeth creak. "
"Was it well heard?" - asked the correspondent.
"It's just wonderful," the pioneer answered, "We had one base station and one mobile phone, so the audibility was excellent, and now the operators are trying to put a lot of talk into one frequency channel." Of course, this affects the quality. "
After a conversation with competitors from AT & T, Cooper began to call correspondents. "I made many calls, I remember crossing the street talking to the radio station in New York." "It's one of the most risky things I've done in my life." In general - a typical PR campaign.
The task was completed, public opinion and the profile agency stirred. AT & T took away a piece of monopoly. And the first commercial cell phone appeared on the market only ten years later, on March 6, 1983.
Probably, no other modern technology has penetrated the consumer for so long. It's been 37 years since the creation of the new communication technology and up to the moment of obtaining permission for its commercial use.
Motorola was the first to launch a mass production of mobile phones and for a long time became the trendsetter in the world of wireless telephony. The success of cell phones was staggering. Telephone companies could not provide phones to everyone who wished, because their capabilities were limited by the lack of frequencies, PBX capacities and insufficient number of cellular transmitters. For example, Bell System, which created its cell phone model six months after Motorola, had 545 customers in New York in 1978, and another 3.7 thousand were in line for purchase. On the US scale, 20,000 Bell System customers were in the queue for the purchase, they were informed that the waiting period could take 5-10 years.
Motorola was the first to launch a mass production of mobile phones and for a long time became the trendsetter in the world of wireless telephony. The success of cell phones was staggering. Telephone companies could not provide phones to everyone who wished, because their capabilities were limited by the lack of frequencies, PBX capacities and insufficient number of cellular transmitters. For example, Bell System, which created its cell phone model six months after Motorola, had 545 customers in New York in 1978, and another 3.7 thousand were in line for purchase. On the US scale, 20,000 Bell System customers were in the queue for the purchase, they were informed that the waiting period could take 5-10 years.