The first mobile phone was used for prank calls
Here in the Philippines, the big two telcos are about to launch 3G nationwide. It made me think a bit about the history of mobile phones - from no G to 1G to 2G to 2.5G and now 3G. Then one of my officemates forwarded something to me which she thought I could use for a mobile phone timeline.
Let me share it with you. It’s the interview with Dr. Martin Cooper, a dude from Motorola. In this interview, he shares his experiences with the very first mobile phone that took forever to charge and how its iterations were put to good use - prank calls to Bell.
Read it here.
The first portable we publicly demonstrated was the Dino-Tec. It weighed over 2 pounds, had 30 minutes of talk time and took over a year to recharge between calls. That’s one of the reasons it took so long to commercialize. We only got in a dozen or so tests before we brought it to market. The early cell phones were very primitive. They didn’t have a lot of the advanced features people take for granted today like automatic misdial, call dropping, voice deactivation, echo mode, perma-lock. Those were some of the key patents I put in place while at Motorola over the years.
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POSTED IN: Mobile Monitor, Motorola
1 opinion for The first mobile phone was used for prank calls
CellphoneSavant
Jan 18, 2006 at 11:09 am
Very interesting and entertaining article. Thanks for that. I look forward to your future work.
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