Brief Cellular Phone History

The basic concept of cellular phones began in 1947 when researchers looked at crude mobile (car) phones and realized that by using small cells (range of service area) with frequency reuse could increase the traffic capacity of mobile phones substantially, however, the technology to do it was nonexistent.

In 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.

In 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.

Anything to do with broadcasting and sending a radio or television message out over the airwaves comes under a Federal Communications Committee (FCC) regulation that a cell phone is actually a type of two-way radio. In 1947, AT&T proposed that the FCC allocate a large number of radio spectrum frequencies so that wide-spread mobile telephone service could become feasable and AT&T would have a incentive to research the new technology. We can partially blame the FCC for the gap between the concept of cellular service and it's availability to the public. Because of the FCC decision to limit the frequencies in 1947, only twenty three phone conversations could occur simultaneously in the same service area - not a market incentive for research.

The FCC reconsidered it's position in 1968, and stated "if the technology to build a better mobile service works, we will increase the frequencies allocation, freeing the airwaves for more mobile phones." AT&T - Bell Labs proposed a cellular system to the FCC of many small, low-powered broadcast towers, each covering a 'cell' a few miles in radius, collectively covering a larger area. Each tower would use only a few of the total frequencies allocated to the system, and as cars moved across the area their calls would be passed from tower to tower.

By 1977, AT&T Bell Labs constructed and operated a prototype cellular system. A year later, public trials of the new system were started in Chicago, IL with over 2000 trial customers. In 1979, the first commercial cellular telephone system began operation in Tokyo. In 1981, Motorola and American Radio telephone started a second U.S. cellular radio-telephone system test in the Washington/Baltimore area. By 1982, the slow moving FCC finally authorized commercial cellular service for the USA. A year later, the first American commercial for analog cellular service or AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone Service) was offered in Chicago, IL by Ameritech. Despite the incredible demand, it took cellular phone service 37 years to become commercially available in the United States.

Consumer demand quickly outstripped the system's 1982 standards, by 1987, cellular telephone subscribers exceeded one million, and the airways were crowded. Three ways of improving services existed:

One - Increase frequencies allocation.

Two - Split existing cells.

Three - Improve the technology.

The FCC did not want to handout any more bandwidth and building/splitting cells would have been expensive and add bulk to the network. To stimulate the growth of new technology, the FCC declared in 1987 that cellular licensees may employ alternative cellular technologies in the 800 MHz band. The cellular industry began to research new transmission technology as an alternative and invented CDMA, TDMA technologies. The FCC released the new PCS bandwith 1900 Mhz or 1.9 Ghz in the late 1990's which resulted in greater flexibility and capacity of the newest wireless phones using the newest PCS technologies that enable the wireless phones to perform complex functions similar to a computer. The wireless phones are expected to evolve further into the future with the invention and implementation of newer technologies.

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