![]() Cellular service involves interconnected networks of smaller radio transceivers that hand off moving callers from one transceiver to another. This was not a recipe for universal mobile phone service.Įngineers began working on a concept to overcome this problem at about the time the first mobile phone services went live, and it took nearly four decades to roll out the first cellular phone service in 1983. The first mobile phone services used small numbers of large radio towers, which meant that all the subscribers in a big city shared one central base station. The phone itself would not be of much use without cellular base stations and all the network infrastructure that is behind them. ![]() The radio transmitters, computer processors and batteries at the heart of your cellphone are the descendants of generations of these technologies that grew successively smaller and lighter. Each of these pieces of technology and many more have development histories that span decades.Ī common thread running through the evolution of virtually all electronic technologies is miniaturization. These algorithms have hundreds of component algorithms. It has a specialized computer processor that uses advanced algorithms to convert information to signals that can be transmitted over the air. The phone has antennas and electronics that allow signals to be transmitted and received. population had a mobile phone.Īs an electrical engineer, I know that today’s mobile phone technology has a remarkable number of components, each with a long development path. It was nearly three decades after that before half the U.S. The first handheld mobile phone was demonstrated in 1973, nearly three decades after the introduction of the first mobile phone service. By 1948, the service had 5,000 customers. The equipment filled much of a car’s trunk, and subscribers made calls by picking up the handset and speaking to a switchboard operator. The service was only available in major cities and highway corridors and was aimed at companies rather than individuals. The first mobile phone service, for 80-pound telephones installed in cars, was demonstrated on June 17, 1946, 75 years ago. While the last steps of technological development capture headlines, it takes thousands of scientists and engineers working for decades on myriad technologies to get to the point where blockbuster products begin to capture the public’s imagination. ![]() The people who crossed a wristwatch with a cell phone worked hard for several years to make it happen, but technology development really occurs on a timescale of decades. The amount of time, money, talent and effort required to put a telephone on my wrist spanned far beyond any one product development cycle. The transition from fantasy to reality was far from the flip of a switch. People now take this type of technology for granted, but not so long ago it was firmly in the realm of science fiction.
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