The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of the first cell phones is the large Zach Morris phone used in the 1990’s television series Saved by the Bell. Around this same time I remember my dad purchasing a “car phone” and thinking how cool it was that we could call someone while driving. Little did I know that there was much history prior to the 1990’s with the use of wireless telephony. It is amazing what significant changes can happen to the cell phone market in a span of only a few years.
The first use of wireless telephony was in 1895 when Gugliemlo Marconi sent the first wireless message. In 1906 Reginald Fessenden's invented the shore-to-ship radiotelephony, which was used through the Second World War. Just two years later, Nathan Stubblefield was issued the patent number for the wireless telephone; however, he applied this to “cave radio” phones only and not to cell phones as we know them today. During the 1920’s radiotelephony was used for communication between Detroit police cars as well as trains that ran between Hamburg and Berlin (Famento).
Motorola is considered the first inventor of the cell phone not used in a vehicle. Motorola manager Martin Cooper made the first call from a handheld device on April 3, 1973. It was not until 1979 that the first mobile network was launched in Japan. In 1984 Bell Labs made it possible for cell phone users to travel through several cells during a conversation without dropping the call, this is known as “call handoff.” In 1990 the United States produced their first mobile phone. Text messaging was used in the 1980’s by Europeans for the Global Systems for Communication; yet it was not until 1993 that it was used by a civilian by accident and soon took off from there (Jung).
So far the cell phone industry has been through three generations while a fourth is in the making. The first generation known as 1G started in the 1980’s by using analog telecommunications. The second generation 2G soon replaced 1G. The main difference between 1G and 2G was that 2G used digital instead of analog communications. Both systems use digital to connect to radio towers to the rest of the telephone system, the voice itself during a call is encoded to digital signals in 2G whereas 1G is only modulated to higher frequency, typically 150MHz and up (Wikipedia).
As we learned in lecture, today’s 3G is Global standard developed by the International Telecommunication Union. 3G uses packet switching and can perform many more functions on a phone than even just a few years ago. The 3G phones feature anything and everything from a camera to text messaging to Internet to games. It is unbelievable the many uses of today’s cell phone. It is hard to believe that there is something bigger and better than a 3G; however, the 4G could offer something as great as HD cable or satellite television(Lecture).
Thinking back to how fascinated I was with our first car phone it is amazing to think of how quickly the cell phone market has advanced and what it has become. The many uses of cell phones today such as Blackberry and the iPhone make life for businessmen and women much easier and essential to their careers. Today most people cannot leave home in the morning with out their cell phone, let a lone survive an entire day. Is it healthy for our society to rely so much on cell phones as much as we do? Because of our addiction to our cell phones communication has become less of a personal experience. Instead we use text messaging, black berry messaging, email right from our phone or even Facebook right on our phone instead of actually dialing and calling someone (Jung).
Famento. 2008. History of Mobile Phones.
http://www.xtimeline.com/timeline/History-of-Mobile-Phones--Cell-Phones-
Jung, Joo –Yung. Volume 59. Issue 3. Information and communication technologies in action: Linking theory and narratives of practice. Journal of Communication, 13-15.
Lecture. Mobile Communications. November 3, 2009.
Wikipedia. The History of Mobile Phones. 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mobile_phones
