The History of the Cellular Phone

The proposition of the first cell phone was first thought of by Douglas H Ring and Rae Young, in the year 1947. The two engineers worked for Bell Labs when they came up with the idea of hexagonal cells for mobile phones. They decided that cells would have a three way directional antenna to enable the phones to transmit and receive information in different directions. However, technology wasn't advanced enough at the time of their proposal, and there weren't any allocated frequencies in order to maintain their idea. It was not until the 1960's that Richard H. Frenkiel and Joel S. Engel, of the same lab would be able to make these advancements in technology.

Cell phones with direct dialing have been seen as early as the 1950's, one particular movie starring Humphry Bogart featured him using such a device in the back of a limousine in the movie. Ericsson developed the first automatic cell phone, in Sweden, in 1956. The main disadvantage of this phone was the weight, as it is said to have weighed 40 kg. In 1965 they changed to transmitter usage, and that brought the phone down to 9 kg in weight. Although, this was still a heavy device to carry around the more modern style made the cell phone more popular. The company started off with 150 customers, and at the close of the company, in 1983, there were 600 consumers using these cell phones. The areas in which the cell phone could be used were restricted as there were not enough base stations to enable the phones to work without cutting off the signal. An automatic call hand off system was developed by another Bell Labs engineer, in 1967. This allowed users to have a conversation without the worry of being cut off due to a low signal.

In 1971 AT&T submitted a proposal for a cellular communications network, but it was not until 1982 that the company were allocated frequencies for the request. The first hand-held cell phone released in the US was the Motorola Dyna's 800X, which was approved in 1983. Popularity of the cell phone increased during the 1980's, when more base stations were established, these phones were using analog transmission at this time. At first, the cell phones were so big that they were only practical for use when installed in vehicles. Motorola was the first company to introduce a cell phone that was actually mobile, these were named the first generation cell phones.

The first digital cell phone call was made in the US, in 1990. The first GSM (global system for Mobile communications) opened in Finland, in 1991. There was then the introduction of fast and advanced network servicing in the cell phone industry. Along with the introduction of second generation phones, came the reduction in size of the cell phone. It would now become standard practice to make these cell phones weigh 100 - 200 grams. The introduction of the second generation cell phone also brought the text messaging system into production. The first machine message was sent as a text from the UK, in 1991. The first person to person text was sent in Finland, in 1993.

The latest introduction was the third generation cell phone. In 2001, technology had fully advanced, and there were various types of multimedia content that could, and were applied to cell phones. The latest development is the facility that allows the watching of t.v on the cell phone. There are a lot of features now that people would not have thought possible when the cell phone was first put into production.