In today's world, most people communicate through the
use cellular phones. It's hard to believe that fifteen years ago cell phones
were a rarity. Below is a history chronicling the dawn of the cell phone to its
current state.
1843- A skilled analytical chemist by the name of Michael Faraday began exhaustive
research into whether space could conduct electricity. Faraday exposed his great
advances of nineteenth-century science and technology and his discoveries have had
an incalculable effect on technical development toward cellular phone development.
1865- Dr. Mahlon Loomis of Virginia, a dentist, may have been the first person
to communicate through wireless via the atmosphere. Between 1866 and 1873 he
transmitted telegraphic messages at a distance of 18 miles between the tops of
Cohocton and Beorse Deer Mountains, Virginia. He developed a method of
transmitting and receiving messages by using the Earth's atmosphere as a
conductor and launching kites enclosed with a copper screens that were linked to
the ground with copper wires. Congress then awarded Loomis a $50,000 research
grant.
1973- Dr Martin Cooper, is considered the inventor of the first portable
handset. Dr. Cooper, former general manager for the systems division at
Motorola, and the first person to make a call on a portable cellular phone.
1973 - Dr. Cooper set up a base station in New York with the first working
prototype of a cellular telephone, the Motorola Dyna-Tac. Mr. Cooper and
Motorola took the phone technology to New York to show the public.
1977 - Cell phones go public. Public cell phone testing began. The city of
Chicago was where the first trials began with 2000 customers, and eventually
other cell phone trials appeared in the Washington D.C. and Baltimore area.
Japan began testing cellular phone service in 1979.
1988- this year changed many of the technologies that had become typical in the
past. The Cellular Technology Industry Association (CTIA) was developed to lay
down practical goals for cellular phone providers. This included research for
new applications for cell phone development. A new standard was placed with the
creation of the TDMA Interim Standard 54, in 1991 by the Telecommunications
Industry Association.
In spite of the unbelievable demand, it took cellular phone service 37 years
total to become commercially accessible in the US. According to the Cellular
Telecommunications Industry Association, today there are more than 60 million
customers with cellular phones, even though wireless service was just invented
nearly 50 years ago. The cellular business was a $3 million market 25 years ago
and has grown increasingly to close to a $30 billion per year industry.
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