Story of the predecessor of all mobile phones – Motorola DynaTAC

In April 3, 1972 a man came out of the Hilton hotel in Manhattan and started walking the sidewalk. He stopped, raised his hand with some strange "brick" in it, put it to the ear and started talking with it. This was the beginning of mobile phone history more than 30 years ago.
The heroes of that memorable date are still alive. The first public call on mobile phone was made by Motorola's project manager Martin Cooper, who was 34 that day. And that strange "brick" was the first mobile phone Motorola DynaTAC, which also was called "the shoe" because of its design.

M. Cooper arrived in New York to introduce the new phone. The first call he made to his rival Joe Engel from AT&T’s research center Bell Labs. Engel was responsible for development of radio phones for cars. "I called him ant have told that I was talking on a real mobile phone that I held in my hand," – said Cooper. "I don't remember what he said, but I'm sure he wasn't happy".

The quality of the call was very good, because New York had only one base station at that date, which was used only by one user – Martin Cooper.

Cellular technology was created by Bell Labs in 1947. The main point of the technology is that transceivers in the base stations are able to exchange signals with each other when user is moving. The first phones for cellular networks were stationary and used only in cars. They weighed more than 13 kilos and cost thousands of dollars. The founder of Motorola Paul Galvin understood the future of this technology and the company used $15 million for cellular network research and development each year.

After creating the first mobile phone Motorola tried to overtake its main rival AT&T, which paid more attention to car phones and was trying to get the license from Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to control all cellular networks in the USA. In 1972 FCC gave AT&T license to control radio frequency that is used by car phones. In the end of the 60's AT&T started car phone service, which had about 50 000 users after a few years. Company forecasted that in the year 2000 the number of car phone users will reach 900 000.

Motorola had to hurry and introduce its mobile network system to FCC in 90 days. So, in February, 1973 Motorola had the first really working concept DynaTAC phone and started building mobile network infrastructure.

After demonstrating first working mobile phone to FCC, Commission decided to share radio spectrum again. But only in 1977, FCC made the first tests of Motorola and AT&T mobile network technologies in Washington, Baltimore and Chicago. While Americans were waiting, the Japanese started their own tests of mobile network and in 1979 the first cellular network was launched in Japan.

Maybe the things were not moving if the US president wouldn't have said his word. This happened because of personal relationships of Motorola's founder Paul Galvin. One day he called his old fellow Vice-president George Bush to the White House and asked if he could show the White House to his 7 year old grandson. Motorola's founder told only after 30 years, what happened during the meeting with George Bush. P. Galvin showed mobile phone that he brought to the vice-president and told that his company got the license to deploy testing cellular network. FCC saw this device and almost approved it, but now is paying almost no attention to it.

According to Paul Galvin, Vice-president Bush didn't use a mobile phone before. "Why should you not call to Barbara?" – Galvin offered. G. Bush called his wife and asked: "Do you know what I'm doing now? I'm talking on a mobile phone". Then he asked Paul: "Has Ron seen it?" Galvin realized that Bush was talking about the president Ronald Reagan and said "No".

The same day Galvin and other business-men were invited to meet the president Ronald Reagan. George Bush asked Paul Galvin to come closer to the President and said: "Ron, you should see this thing". Galvin explained that this was a mobile phone that should appear in the market soon. Reagan called someone and asked: "What's the status of this device?" Galvin said that company was ready to start selling it for about four years, but FCC hasn't allowed doing this, because maybe they wanted that the Japanese were the first who entered the market. Reagan said to his assistant: "Call the FCC's president and tell him that I want this device to be released".

In 1982 FCC said that cellular technology was safe enough to use and started first auctions of cellular licenses. Motorola DynaTAC was officially approved in September 1983.

30 years after the first call on a mobile phone, its inventor doesn't writhe that it took about 10 years for phones to appear in the market. Martin Cooper said that it took quite a long time for new inventions to appear: "It took 19 for microwave ovens and 15 years for computers to appear in mass market. This lasts longer than people think."

So, that was the story of the predecessor of all mobile phones – Motorola DynaTAC. Of course, it looks more than funny near today's phones. But we all still should thank Martin Cooper, Paul Galvin and Motorola that we have such mobile phones, as we know them today. So, THANK YOU!