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25 Anniversary of the First Commercial Mobile Phone Call Timeline
Posted by Jesus Diaz at 11:20 PM on October 13, 2008
Today marks the 25th Anniversary of the first commercial mobile phone call in history. On October 13th 1983, Ameritech executive Bob Barnett called the grandson of Alexander Graham Bell using the now legendary and bricktastic Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. Here's our modified mobile phone timeline highlighting this historic event. You can click on it to see the full 2,300 pixel wide version.
Click on the image above to see it big
At the time, Fortune magazine's Stephanie N. Mehta pointed out that "the sound quality wasn't pristine, and the conversation wasn't especially scintillating". From that day to last year, things have changed dramatically. The analogue mobile phone was replaced by digital, and texting, email, music, web browsing and social networks have taken over the world thanks to this now ubiquitous device: in 2007, the number of mobile phone subscriptions in the planet reached 3.3 billion, half of the people in planet Earth.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
fusedinertia
Posted 12:55 AM 14/10/08
@FuzzysFriedChicken: Agreed, I like the timeline, very well done, but the RAZR no matter how crappy the software was, was one of the best selling cell phones in the U.S and abroad.Yes we know Motorola is dead, but gotta give credit where credit is due.
fusedinertia
MrBlahBlah
Posted 12:51 AM 14/10/08
wow, slow and painful progress!
MrBlahBlah
jibbly
Posted 12:48 AM 14/10/08
Those dynatacs are called the Zack Morris Phone, aka the coolest thing ever in grade school. Oh except for Kelly Kapowski. She was dreaaaamy.
jibbly
danjuan
Posted 12:37 AM 14/10/08
Yet again, Nikola Tesla is not given the credit that is needed for his stolen patens by Marcony.
danjuan
jewsrock
Posted 12:36 AM 14/10/08
@jewsrock:
Nevermind. I'm stupid.
jewsrock
FuzzysFriedChicken
Posted 12:35 AM 14/10/08
How do you have a history of cell phone timeline and not include the RAZR. It has sold ~150 million units, and introduced the public to fashion phones. A majority of today's phones would not look like do without the RAZR.
FuzzysFriedChicken
jewsrock
Posted 12:32 AM 14/10/08
Didnt you allready make a timeline of the cellphone
jewsrock
Curves
Posted 1:41 AM 14/10/08
They forgot to put the "Two cans with string between them" on the time line, a very important communication tool!
And Bruce Rocks. He earned the title "The Boss".
Curves
unspellable
Posted 1:33 AM 14/10/08
I may hate when Jesus does stories with Bruce Springstink in them but I love his time lines.
Another job well done.
unspellable
EricAlder
Posted 1:27 AM 14/10/08
FIRST CELL PHONE CALL:
Person 1: Hello?
Person 2: Hey, 'sup?
Person 1: Not much,'sup with you?
Person 2: Nothin'
Person 1: Alright, talk to ya later.
Person 2: See ya!
EricAlder
discounteggroll
Posted 1:25 AM 14/10/08
that nokia logo gives me goosebumps every time I see it
discounteggroll
sharkync
Posted 2:06 AM 14/10/08
Where's my Novatel bag phone?
sharkync
DeLarge
Posted 2:03 AM 14/10/08
My Motorola Star Tac Vader still rocks as one of the most beutiful phones ever made.
Useless in the US now that there is not analog service anymore.
DeLarge
Husar
Posted 2:15 AM 14/10/08
You forgot to add in the date of the guy that did all the early cell phone testing. He died of brain cancer.
Husar
LittleJon
Posted 2:30 AM 14/10/08
Alexander Graham Bell wasn't the first to invent the telephone (much in the same way that Edison was a year behind Swan in the UK in getting a light bulb to market).
Italian Antonio Meucci filed a provisional patent for a phone 5 years before Bell, but didn't have enough money to turn it in to a full patent.
Bell did actually make the first successful call though.
LittleJon
jestermeister
Posted 3:11 AM 14/10/08
Is it just me or isn't text messaging basically a return to technology from 100 years ago?
jestermeister
sarwatmj
Posted 6:42 AM 14/10/08
its amazing how its kinda exponential, almost 90% of the advancement has happened in the last 15 years!
sarwatmj
vicsells
Posted 6:32 AM 14/10/08
WOW!! I'm so glad that I wasn't born back then! I get to start out with an iphone!! imagine where I'll be 20 yrs from now - Yahoo!!
vicsells
DonnaHelen
Posted 4:30 AM 14/10/08
Typo on '56. Could that be like the first dropped call?
DonnaHelen
L_A_G
Posted 2:47 AM 14/10/08
@FuzzysFriedChicken: Ummm.... The Razr sold well in the US, not in the rest of the world where clamshels don't dominate the market so it hasn't had any major inpact on cellphone design outside of the US (unlike you egocentric Americans think).
The saleas numbers? That's peanuts compared to Nokia's cheaper phones sold in the developing world (mainly China and India)
If you ask me the timeline is gross simplification mainly focusing on American inventors, Motorola and Nokia.
I for one would have also added (amongst other events) the time when the USSR's prime minister Gorbazow maing one of the first comercial phone calls on a phone made by Mobira (not long after that bought up by the industiral company Nokia and renamed afer it).
Heck, they even named a model after him as thanks for that.
L_A_G
L_A_G
Posted 2:44 AM 14/10/08
@FuzzysFriedChicken: Ummm.... The Razr sold well in the US, not in the rest of the world where clamshels don't dominate the market so it hasn't had any major inpact on cellphone design outside of the US (unlike you egocentric Americans think).
The saleas numbers? That's peanuts compared to Nokia's cheaper phones sold in the developing world (mainly China and India)
If you ask me the timeline is gross simplification mainly focusing on Motorola, American inventors and Nokia.
I for one would have amongst others included the USSR's prime minister Gorbazow doing one of the first comercial calls on a phone made by Mobira (soon after that bought up by the industial company called Nokia and renamed after the company).
L_A_G