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The history of the mobile phone

It would be difficult for a child growing up in the United States of today to imagine life without mobile phones. Even in the poorer neighborhoods of this country, people walking around with a phone to their ear is a common sight. In the more affluent parts of the nation it is not uncommon to even see children ten years old or younger with their own cell phone. Whether using your phone to talk to someone or to text them, these devices seem to be a new ”essential” in American society. From New York to Los Angeles, from Florida to chicago, ”the electronic leash” as some detractors like to call the new phones, are here to stay.

However, it hasn’t always been this way. The phone itself was invented less than 140 years ago. It was the middle of the last century before almost everyone in the United States had a home phone. Mobile phones at first did not exist, then existed but were complicated and hard to use. Then they were simplified but unreliable. Next they were reliable but very expensive. Then ones like bag phones were less expensive but very bulky. Finally they became easy to carry, fairly reliable and generally affordable. Now they are as common as televisions.

The first attempts at hand held mobile communication were radios like the walkie -talkies first developed for the U.S. military in the 1940s.  Some radio phone networks were developed in areas like St. Louis but their limited range and few channels available for voice restricted their effectiveness. These early mobile phones were usually mounted in a truck or car with a transmitter-receiver in the trunk. What defined them as phones rather than simply radios was that they had their own telephone number and were interfaced, often through an operator, with the telephone system.

The idea of a “cellular” mobile phone system started with engineers at Bell Labs. By the 1970s the concept had developed into the idea of constructing “cell towers” to allow mobile phones to move through a series of cell tower areas in a single uninterrupted conversation. Because of the lengthy hearing process and other factors, the United States lost its technical edge over the rest of the world in cellular technology.  In 1979 Japan introduced the first automated commercial  cellular network (the first generation or 1G). In 1982 the FCC approved AT&T’s 1971 proposal for cellular service and allocated frequencies for that purpose. By 1983 Japan had already completed a cellular network which covered their entire nation. By that time countries like Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland were also offering cellular phone service to most of their populations.

In the 1990s the second generation (2G) cell phones were introduced to the public.  Instead of an analog transmission , the 2G had digital transmissions. This allowed for a new form of communications called “text messaging”. This technology also allowed access to media content on a mobile phone such as advertising. As the cell phone came into widespread use, there was “a need for speed” to  quickly handle data transmission like downloading from the internet. The third generation (3G) high speed data network phones were the solution. By 2008 there were over 300 million subscribers on 3G networks world wide.

As bandwidth intensive applications like streaming video were added to mobile phones, a need for more speed became obvious. The fourth generation (4G) cell phones which eliminate circuit switching arrived on the scene with over 10 times the speed of 3G phones. Like the nuclear arms race, the cell phone wars continue to drive technology advances. Where will they end? I just hope that one day my cell phone will take out the garbage and wash the dog. Then I will be happy.