Viktor Foggo May 18, 2009

Cellular Telephones in the Making

By: Viktor Foggo
In the beginning the first type of radio telephone technology was primarily used in Taxi cabs, ambulances and police cruisers. Although they were the closest thing to a cell phone at the time, they were still not technically cellular phones because they were not actually connected to a cell network. The cell technology that our phones use today was thought of when researchers figured out that car phones could get increased traffic capacity if they broke up service area in to small cells with frequency reuse, but at the time the technology was nonexistent. In 1947 AT&T proposed that the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) allocate a large number of radiospectrum frequencies so that AT&T would have an incentive to research into cell technology. The FCC then decided to allow twenty-three phone conversations simultaneously in one service area, not enough for research. Therefore many people partially blame the FCC for the gap between the concept and public availability. Naturally, that was a major setback but in 1968 the FCC said that if there is technology to make a better mobile service and it works they would open the airways for far more cell phone traffic. AT&T and Bell Labs proposed a cell network consisting of many small, lowpowered broadcast towers, each covering a cell a few miles in diameter. As

phone conversations traveled, the calls would be passed from tower to tower. As a former general manager for the systems divisions at Motorola, Dr. Martin cooper is considered the inventor of the cell phone. Then in April 1973 he made the first cellular telephone call, to his rival, Joe Engel from bell labs. In 1947 bell labs had the original idea of cellular communications, with police car technology, but Motorola was the one that incorporated the technology with handheld devices for use outside of cars. Around 1977 AT&T and Bell Labs built a prototype cellular system, a year later public trials started in Chicago with over 2000 customers. In 1979 the first commercial cell phone venture started in Tokyo. By 1982 the FCC finally authorized commercial cell service in the United States. A year later the first analog cellular service, also known as AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone Service) was opened in Chicago by Ameritech. Despite the huge demand for cellular telephones, it took the service 37 years to develop all the way to a commercial stage in the United States. Then in 1982, consumer demand quickly outstripped the system at the time. In 1987 cellular telephone subscribers exceeded one million, and the airways were overcrowded. It was clear that the system needed to be expanded, they had three options: Increase frequency allocations, split existing cells, or improve the technology. Believe it or not, the FCC didnt want to hand out more bandwidth. Splitting the cells would have been very expensive and

would have added bulk to the system. Although they wouldnt hand out more bandwidth, they declared that cellular licenses could employ alternative cell technologies within the 800MHz band. Therefore the cellular telephone industry began researching new transmission technology.

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa070899.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mobile_phones