| The high tech, elaborate cell phones that many | | | | stations and continued to develop these cells well |
| people use in the modern world are a far cry | | | | into the 1960s. |
| from the first mobile phones. Yet if it was not for | | | | On April 3, 1973, Martin Cooper, who was a |
| these earlier versions of mobile communication | | | | researcher and executive at Motorola made the |
| devices, we would not have the option of cell | | | | first call on a handheld mobile phone. Sixteen |
| phones and the many phone feature that we | | | | years later, on May 1, 1979, a United States |
| take for granted. | | | | patent was given to Charles A. Gladden and |
| The development of talking on radio waves | | | | Martin H. Parelman, both of Las Vegas, Nevada. If |
| started with Reginald Fessenden, a Canadian | | | | you carefully read the patent, these two |
| inventor who began working with Thomas Edison | | | | inventors were beginning to combine all the |
| in 1886. On December 23, 1900, Fessenden | | | | elements that led to the next development in |
| successively transmitted speech approximately 1.6 | | | | radio telephony, the Analog Cellular Telephone. In |
| kilometers, the very first audio radio transmission. | | | | that same year, NTT of Japan launched the first |
| By December 21, 1906, the inventor successfully | | | | commercial citywide cellular network. |
| demonstrated his new alternator transmitter, | | | | In 1983, the Motorola DynaTAC was the first |
| showing its utility for point-to point wireless | | | | approved mobile phone by the FCC. In, 1984, |
| telephony. He also demonstrated his | | | | basing their work on the 1979 patent of Gladden |
| interconnection of his stations to the wire | | | | and Parelman, Bell Labs developed the modern |
| telephone network. Fessenden made the first | | | | cellular technology that involves the utility of cell |
| two-way transatlantic radio transmission in this | | | | sites, each providing service to an individual cell. At |
| same year. | | | | this same time, fully automated cellular networks |
| Soon after Fessenden's demonstrations, the first | | | | were introduced. |
| wireless phone was patented in 1908. The patent | | | | In 1991, the first modern network technology |
| was given to Nathan B. Stubblefield of Murray, | | | | was introduced by Radiolinja in Finland, leading to |
| Kentucky who was an inventor as well as the | | | | the Nordic Mobile Telephone system going online. |
| founder of Teleph-on-delgreen Industrial School. He | | | | This was the first instance of competition |
| applied the patent to a "cave radio" telephone | | | | between cell phone providers as this company set |
| which was a more primitive design of wireless | | | | itself up against Telecom Finland. This |
| telephones. | | | | development also led to an increase in mobile |
| During World War II, radio telephony grew in | | | | phone usage in northern Europe. |
| popularity as the choice of communication in the | | | | As the years have passed, cell phone companies |
| military. Towards the end of the war in 1945, the | | | | have become booming businesses as the demand |
| zero generation of mobile phones were | | | | for these devices continues to increase at an |
| introduced. These phones worked off a single, | | | | astronomical rate. If not for the efforts of the |
| powerful base station and covered a wide area. | | | | early inventors and engineers, this technology |
| They operated by monopolizing one channel in | | | | would have not been possible. We as a society on |
| that particular area while the phones were in use. | | | | the whole owe these men and women our |
| In 1947, Bell Lab engineers at AT&T | | | | thanks. |
| invented the first cells for mobile phone base | | | | |