{"id":277982,"date":"2021-06-17T17:25:23","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T14:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/the-first-mobile-phone-call-was-75-years-ago-a-look-back\/"},"modified":"2021-06-17T17:25:23","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T14:25:23","slug":"the-first-mobile-phone-call-was-75-years-ago-a-look-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-first-mobile-phone-call-was-75-years-ago-a-look-back\/","title":{"rendered":"#The first mobile phone call was 75 years ago: A look back"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;<strong>#The first mobile phone call was 75 years ago: A look back<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"article-gallery lightGallery\">\n<div data-thumb=\"https:\/\/scx1.b-cdn.net\/csz\/news\/tmb\/2021\/phone-1.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/scx2.b-cdn.net\/gfx\/news\/hires\/2021\/phone-1.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Credit: Unsplash\/CC0 Public Domain\">\n<figure class=\"article-img\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/scx1.b-cdn.net\/csz\/news\/800a\/2021\/phone-1.jpg\" alt=\"phone\" title=\"Credit: Unsplash\/CC0 Public Domain\" width=\"800\" height=\"530\"\/><figcaption class=\"text-darken text-low-up text-truncate-js text-truncate mt-3\">\n                Credit: Unsplash\/CC0 Public Domain<br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>I have a cellphone built into my watch. People now take this type of <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"4\" title=\"Technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">technology<\/a> for granted, but not so long ago it was firmly in the realm of <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/sciencee\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"5\" title=\"Science\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">science<\/a> fiction. The transition from fantasy to reality was far from the flip of a switch. The amount of time, money, talent and effort required to put a telephone on my wrist spanned far beyond any one product development cycle.<\/p>\n<p>                                                                                The people who crossed a wristwatch with a cellphone worked hard for several years to make it h<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>en, but technology development really occurs on a timescale of decades. While the last steps of technological development capture headlines, it takes thousands of scientists and engineers working for decades on myriad technologies to get to the point where blockbuster products begin to capture the public&#8217;s imagination. <\/p>\n<p>The first mobile phone service, for 80-pound telephones installed in cars, was <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/ethw.org\/The_Foundations_of_Mobile_and_Cellular_Telephony\">demonstrated on June 17, 1946<\/a>, 75 years ago. The service was only available in major cities and highway corridors and was aimed at companies rather than individuals. The equipment filled much of a car&#8217;s trunk, and subscribers made calls by picking up the handset and speaking to a switchboard operator. By 1948, the service <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/ethw.org\/The_Foundations_of_Mobile_and_Cellular_Telephony\">had 5,000 customers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The first handheld mobile phone was <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2013\/04\/the-first-mobile-phone-call-was-made-40-years-ago-today\/274611\/\">demonstrated in 1973<\/a>, nearly three decades after the introduction of the first mobile phone service. It was nearly three decades after that before <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/fred.stlouisfed.org\/series\/ITCELSETSP2USA\">half the U.S. population had a mobile phone<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"mb-4\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\"><meta itemprop=\"name\" content=\"The first mobile phone call was 75 years ago \u2013 what it takes for technologies to go from breakthrough to big time\"\/><meta itemprop=\"url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch\/?v=xDy2tHCPdk8\"\/><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"This promotional film from the 1940s touts Bell Telephone\u2019s Mobile Telephone Service.\"\/><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2021-06-17T08:07:49-04:00\"\/><meta itemprop=\"embedUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xDy2tHCPdk8\"\/><meta itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/xDy2tHCPdk8\/maxresdefault.jpg\"\/><br \/>\n             <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"1940s BELL TELEPHONE &quot;MOBILE TELEPHONES&quot; MOVIE  EARLY CELL PHONE \/  MOBILE TELEPHONE SYSTEM  90884\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xDy2tHCPdk8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><figcaption class=\"text-darken text-low-up mt-4\" itemprop=\"caption\">This promotional film from the 1940s touts Bell Telephone\u2019s Mobile Telephone Service.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><b>Big history in small packages<\/b><\/p>\n<p>As an <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/citations?user=scNTosQAAAAJ&amp;hl=en\">electrical engineer<\/a>, I know that today&#8217;s mobile phone technology has a remarkable number of components, each with a long development path. The phone has antennas and electronics that allow signals to be transmitted and received. It has a specialized computer processor that uses advanced algorithms to convert information to signals that can be transmitted over the air. These algorithms have hundreds of component algorithms. Each of these pieces of technology and many more have development histories that span decades.<br \/>\n                                            <!-- Google middle Adsense block --><\/p>\n<p>A common thread running through the evolution of virtually all electronic technologies is <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/978-1-349-17365-5_10\">miniaturization<\/a>. The radio transmitters, computer processors and batteries at the heart of your cellphone are the descendants of generations of these technologies that grew successively smaller and lighter.<\/p>\n<p>The phone itself would not be of much use without cellular base stations and all the network infrastructure that is behind them. The first mobile phone services used small numbers of large radio towers, which meant that all the subscribers in a big city shared one central base station. This was not a recipe for universal mobile phone service.<\/p>\n<p>Engineers began working on a concept to overcome this problem at about the time the first mobile phone services went live, and it took nearly four decades to roll out the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/techchannel.att.com\/play-video.cfm\/2014\/2\/3\/ATT-Archives-Advanced-Mobile-Phone-Service-AMPS\">first cellular phone service<\/a> in 1983. Cellular service involves interconnected networks of smaller radio transceivers that hand off moving callers from one transceiver to another.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"mb-4\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\"><meta itemprop=\"name\" content=\"The first mobile phone call was 75 years ago \u2013 what it takes for technologies to go from breakthrough to big time\"\/><meta itemprop=\"url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch\/?v=JnsyG-_YIZ0\"\/><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"The author explains the \u2018cell\u2019 in cellphone service.\"\/><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2021-06-17T08:07:57-04:00\"\/><meta itemprop=\"embedUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JnsyG-_YIZ0\"\/><meta itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/JnsyG-_YIZ0\/maxresdefault.jpg\"\/><br \/>\n             <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"What&#039;s cellular about a cellphone?\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JnsyG-_YIZ0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><figcaption class=\"text-darken text-low-up mt-4\" itemprop=\"caption\">The author explains the \u2018cell\u2019 in cellphone service.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><b>Military necessity<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Your cellphone is a result of over a hundred years of commercial and government investment in research and development in all of its components and related technologies. A significant portion of the cutting-edge development has been funded by the military.  <\/p>\n<p>A major impetus for developing mobile wireless technologies was the need during World War II for troops to communicate on the move in the field. The SRC-536 <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/tech-history\/dawn-of-electronics\/the-scr536-handietalkie-was-the-modern-walkietalkies-finicky-ancestor\">Handie-Talkie<\/a> was developed by the predecessor to Motorola Corporation and used by the U.S. Army in the war. The Handie-Talkie was a two-way radio that was small enough to be held in one hand and resembled a telephone. Motorola went on to become one of the major manufacturers of cellphones.<\/p>\n<p>The story of military investment in technology becoming <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/game\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"7\" title=\"Game\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">game<\/a>-changing commercial products and services has been repeated again and again. Famously, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency developed the technologies behind the internet and speech recognition. But DARPA also made enabling investments in advanced communications algorithms, processor technology, electronics miniaturization and many other aspects of your phone.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"mb-4\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\"><meta itemprop=\"name\" content=\"The first mobile phone call was 75 years ago \u2013 what it takes for technologies to go from breakthrough to big time\"\/><meta itemprop=\"url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch\/?v=fnKlVtTjBaw\"\/><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"A watch that\u2019s a telephone.\"\/><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2021-06-17T08:08:06-04:00\"\/><meta itemprop=\"embedUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fnKlVtTjBaw\"\/><meta itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/fnKlVtTjBaw\/maxresdefault.jpg\"\/><br \/>\n             <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Use Cellular Apple Watch like a Phone! Can Apple Watch Replace Your iPhone?\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fnKlVtTjBaw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><figcaption class=\"text-darken text-low-up mt-4\" itemprop=\"caption\">A watch that\u2019s a telephone.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><b>Looking forward<\/b><\/p>\n<p>By realizing that it takes many decades of research and investment to develop each generation of technology, it&#8217;s possible to get a sense of what might be coming. Today&#8217;s communications technologies\u20145G, WiFi, Bluetooth, and so on\u2014are fixed standards, meaning they are each designed for a single purpose. But over the last 30 years, the Department of Defense and corporations have been investing in technologies that are more capable and flexible. <\/p>\n<p>Your phone of the near future might not only fluidly signal in ways that are more efficient, enable longer ranges or higher data rates, or last significantly longer on a charge, it might also use that radiofrequency energy to perform other functions. For example, your communications signal could also be used as a radar signal to track your hand gestures to control your phone, measure the size of a room, or even <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41598-018-29984-5\">monitor your heart rate<\/a> to predict cardiac distress. <\/p>\n<p>It is always difficult to predict where technology will go, but I can guarantee that future technology will build on decades upon decades of research and development.\n                                                                                                                        <\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<div class=\"article-main__explore my-4 d-print-none\">\n<p>                                            SKorea&#8217;s LG to exit loss-making mobile phone business\n                                        <\/p><\/div>\n<hr class=\"mb-4\"\/>\n<div class=\"d-inline-block text-medium my-4\">\n                                                Provided by<br \/>\n                                                                                                    The Conversation<br \/>\n                                                                                                        <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"icon_open\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\"><br \/>\n                                                        <svg><use href=\"https:\/\/techx.b-cdn.net\/tmpl\/v2\/img\/svg\/sprite.svg#icon_open\" x=\"0\" y=\"0\"\/><\/svg><\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"article-main__note mt-4\">\n                                                This article is republished from <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\">The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/the-first-mobile-phone-call-was-75-years-ago-what-it-takes-for-technologies-to-go-from-breakthrough-to-big-time-162753\">original article<\/a>.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/162753\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                                        <!-- print only --><\/p>\n<div class=\"d-none d-print-block\">\n<p>                                                 <strong>Citation<\/strong>:<br \/>\n                                                 The first mobile phone call was 75 years ago: A look back (2021, June 17)<br \/>\n                                                 retrieved 18 June 2021<br \/>\n                                                 from https:\/\/techxplore.com\/<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a>\/2021-06-mobile-years.html<\/p>\n<p>                                            This document is subject to copyright. 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People now take this type of technology for granted, but not so long ago it was firmly in the realm of science fiction. The transition from fantasy to reality was far&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":277983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/scx2.b-cdn.net\/gfx\/news\/hires\/2021\/phone-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sciencee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}