Who Invented the Cell Phone
Written by Jacob C. Herman
The concept of the cell phone has been around since Elvis Presley was in high school but it actually took over 26 years to make it the reality that it is today. So how did people manage to function without such a necessary device? You would have to imagine that before radios were discovered they just yelled really, really loud.
Radios presented their fair share of inconveniences but they did bridge the communication gap efficiently enough until 1947; the year that AT&T and Bell Labs first started working on the technology needed to make a mobile phone possible.
If you pay attention to classic movies you may notice the millionaire leading man slyly sliding into his luxury Cadillac and picking up his car phone to call the leading lady. So far, this was the closest anyone had come to a mobile phone in the 1950’s and 60’s because it wasn’t until 1973 that the technology for a mobile phone was fully developed.
Doctor Martin Cooper was the Director of Research and Development at Motorola during this time and he was the first to develop the truest form of a cellular phone. Competitor’s designs were large and bulky and still required some type of backpack or car mounted unit; not anyone's idea of a “mobile” phone.
However, 1973’s version of the cell phone was not as popular as most may think. First, they were still pretty large. Second, they were expensive. Third, cell phones were not the necessity then that they have become today. Only those who were wealthy enough to own a car phone knew what it felt like to be able to have a conversation with someone during their drive to work. Others didn't see the point to having something of such a large expense when they had been fine so far without it.
The 1980’s brought on a fully developed cellular network which helped to decrease the price of cell phones. By the 1990’s it shrunk from a mammoth device to something that fits in one's hand. Now, not only can everyone and their mother afford a mobile phone but it has evolved into the average person’s handheld phone, internet, daily planner, personal assistant, and lifeline. People now use one universal local or toll-free telephone number for all their communication needs. Virtual offices have taken the power of mobile phones to the next level.
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