"The Truth Today..."

I am very much a history buff... Did you know it was on this date exactly 50 years ago today, April 3, 1973 that the very first cellular phone call was placed between an employee at Motorola and AT&T's Bell Laboratories. The long time industry partners spent the next 10 years perfecting the systems and equipment that in 1983, Motorola and AT&T launched as the first commercial cellular service in the U.S.

Those of you who are old enough, or who watch old movies and tv will know that mobile phones pre-dated 1983's launch of the Dyna TAC, but what made the Dyna TAC truly revolutionary was the new concept of cellular connectivity. Prior to the introduction of what we now call 1st Gen cell service, most major U.S. cities had mobile telephone service, some as early as 1946. These predecessors to today's cellular networks had severe limitations in that at most only about 2000 users could be on the system at any one time. Also the power hungry equipment needed to connect to the network in the early days completely filled the trunk of the vehicle. Even as solid state electronics were introduced, the transceiver unit was still the size of a large suitcase and it still took up a huge portion of the trunk. These early phones were simplex systems, meaning only one party at a time could talk.  There was a "push to talk" button on the handset.

Above, the in-car control unit of a 1959 Motorola mobile phone

By 1964, the size of the units had shrunk considerably when the IMTS (improved mobile telephone system) was introduced... Although the units were still large and power hungry, they now featured direct dialing (before, the calls were completed by mobile operator) and were fully duplex (meaning both parties on the call could talk at the same time).  Notice that both the 1959 and 1964 models have key switches... If you had one of these, you wouldn't want anyone else using it, since the costs to be on the network was incredible high and in some markets $2-3 per minute ($20-30 today), in addition to the $2000-3000 up front cost of the unit, or up to $120 a month if leased from the phone company.