Groundspeak Portal

In today's world, most people communicate through the use cellular phones. It's hard to believe that fifteen years ago cell phones were a rarity. Below is a history chronicling the dawn of the cell phone to its current state.

1973 - Dr Martin Cooper, is considered the inventor of the first portable handset. Dr. Cooper, former general manager for the systems division at Motorola, and the first person to make a call on a portable cellular phone.

1973 - Dr. Cooper set up a base station in New York with the first working prototype of a cellular telephone, the Motorola Dyna-Tac. Mr. Cooper and Motorola took the phone technology to New York to show the public.

1977 - Cell phones go public. Public cell phone testing began. The city of Chicago was where the first trials began with 2000 customers, and eventually other cell phone trials appeared in the Washington D.C. and Baltimore area. Japan began testing cellular phone service in 1979.

1988 - this year changed many of the technologies that had become typical in the past. The Cellular Technology Industry Association (CTIA) was developed to lay down practical goals for cellular phone providers. This included research for new applications for cell phone development. A new standard was placed with the creation of the TDMA Interim Standard 54, in 1991 by the Telecommunications Industry Association.

In spite of the unbelievable demand, it took cellular phone service 37 years total to become commercially accessible in the US. According to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, today there are more than 60 million customers with cellular phones, even though wireless service was just invented nearly 50 years ago. The cellular business was a $3 million market 25 years ago and has grown increasingly to close to a $30 billion per year industry.