CELL PHONE TIMELINE: EVOLUTION SINCE 1930 - TECHNOLOGY - 2025

The cell phone timeline goes beyond the 70s, the date on which it was born. Specifically, the origins date back to the late 1930s with the invention of portable radios in the United States.

Today cell phones are part of everyday life for most of the inhabitants of this planet and are a clear example of the dizzying speed of technological evolution.

If you ask a person how many times they have unlocked their cell phone today, they probably don't remember, but they also likely admit that they did it many times. There is an average: 110 times a day.

Cell Phone Timeline: 1930 to Today

- Portable radios

1938

What many do not know is that the cell phone found in the first portable AM ​​radios, the SCR-194 and 195, an ancestor. These models were produced by the US Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories.

Weighing approximately 25 pounds and having a range of 5 miles, these "walkie talkies" were widely used during World War II.

1940

Another development for military purposes that can be counted as an antecedent to the cell phone was Motorola's SCR-300 radio transceiver.

Although it weighed more (32 and 38 pounds) and had a shorter range (3 miles) than the SCR-194 and 195, it was also popular with the Allies during World War II.

1942

In the same line of portable radios is the first "handie talkie", SCR-536, developed by Motorola with a weight of 5 pounds and a range on land of 1 mile, while on the water its signal could reach 3 miles.

1946

This was the year that the first commercial mobile telephone service was introduced: the Mobile Telephone System (MTS), developed by Bell System.

It weighed 80 pounds and worked with limited calling bands available from AT&T, costing up to $ 30 a month with additional charges per call.

1956

Ten years after the Bell System MTS, Ericsson's Mobile System A (MTA) appears, the first partially automatic mobile car system to be marketed in Sweden.

A year later, Du Mont engineer James A. Craig, in the United States, demonstrates the first radiotelephony equipment that allows vehicle phone calls to and fro to be retransmitted completely unattended over the local phone companies.

1964

Starting this year, car owners with built-in telephones in the United States began to see lighter mobile phones, with push buttons, but with little accessible prices and rationed service.

- The rise of the cell phone

1973

The mobile phone leaves the car thanks to DynaTAC (Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage), with which the former vice president of Motorola, Martin Cooper, made the first private phone call.

The device in question weighed 1.1kg and its dimensions were 228.6x127x44.4mm. The user could talk for 30 minutes and it took almost 10 hours for his battery to fully charge.

Regarding connectivity, these first devices belong to the “Zero Generation” (0G), because they do not have that capacity.

1982

Nokia appears in the mobile phone market and the first international mobile service is launched, that is, the first generation (1G) of mobile communications.

1983

The DynaTAC 8000X cell phone from Motorola is marketed to the public. By this time, it weighed less than 2 pounds and was running on AMPS, North America's first 1G analog service.

This device, the first cell phone approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States, offered 30 minutes of conversation, 6 hours on standby and could store up to 30 phone numbers.

However, it was still a technology accessible to few; It cost almost $ 4,000 (almost $ 9,000 today), plus its design was more geared towards businessmen.

1984

The Mobira Talkman appears, increasing the time available for conversations that the DynaTAC had imposed.

1989

Motorola once again pioneered its MicroTAC, the world's first pocket phone thanks to its flip design, in which the hardware was located in a hinged section of the phone, reducing the size of the device when not in use.

GSM unveils 2G digital encryption technology three years later.

1992

The Motorola International 3200 appears as the first digital mobile phone to use 2G technology.

- Smart phones

Arguably, with the 90s, a race begins to improve the design of phones and to make them more portable so that any consumer can access them.

And at the end of the decade, multipurpose phones appeared with: games, calculator, clock, calendar, profile settings and colors on their screen.

1993

The IBM Simon, a mobile phone, pager, fax and PDA, which also included a calendar, address book, clock, calculator, notepad, email, games and a touch screen with QWERTY keyboard is launched on the market.

nineteen ninety six

Motorola shows the public its StarTAC, which opened and closed like a clam, cutting the size of the phone in half. It worked on 1G networks and then went on to 2G.

1997

With the Nokia 9000 comes the first cell phone that also includes mini-computer functions, despite its limited access to the web. It had an LCD screen and a full QWERTY keyboard, a first for a mobile phone.

That same year, Nokia released its model 3110, the most compact mobile phone available.

1998

Nokia moves towards a more comfortable and ergonomic design; with its 8810 model it eliminates the external antenna or heel-antenna, and then launches other models with sliding keyboard.

1999

Nokia innovates again with its model 3210, which allowed to send messages with pre-installed images; or the 7110, the first cell phone to incorporate Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), or what is the same: access to the web for mobile users.

At that time, the Kyocera VP-201 also appeared, the first cell phone to have a built-in camera.

- Telephones and cameras

2000

Sharp makes its J-SH04 model available to the public, with a built-in camera that offered images with a resolution of 0.1 megapixels.

With this device began what is now known as MMS thanks to the fact that it had an integrated CCD sensor and the Sha-Mail (Picture-Mail) infrastructure.

2002

The first camera phone is marketed in North America: the Sprint Sanyo 5300.

RIM launched the first Blackberry on the market, although its most popular models were: the 5810, for incorporating a cell phone into a data-only device; and 2002, because it included wireless email, print, and fax.

This year the T-Mobile Sidekick is also known as a phone that allowed a web browsing experience and integrated instant messaging (AIM), with a QWERTY keyboard.

The PDA fever begins with Microsoft's Pocket PC Phone Edition, which later gave way to the HP Jornada 928 Wireless Digital Assistant and Handspring's Palm Treo 180.

2004

A camera phone called Motorola RAZR is marketed, which modified the design of mobiles.

2005

Microsoft users celebrated the Treo 700w, a Palm OS that ran on Windows Mobile.

And the Motorola ROKR E1, comes with Apple's iTunes music player built in to manage a maximum of 100 songs.

2007

The world knows Apple's iPhone, a touchscreen smartphone with 3G technology.

2008

HTC Dream emerges as the first smartphone capable of running Google's Android operating system. It included a QWERTY keyboard, a full HTML web browser, Gmail, and YouTube.

Nokia Corp. led the industry with 40 percent in mobile phone sales worldwide. With its Nokia 1100 model alone, it sold 250 million phones, making it the best-selling gadget in history.

2010

The first device to work with the 4G network arrives: the HTC EVO 4G from Sprint. It also had one of the largest touchscreens, an 8MP camera, HD video capture, HDMI output, Mobile Hotspot capability, and HTC Sense.

2010 - present

In the last 7 years, the challenge of manufacturers has focused on developing devices with a battery that lasts longer and with an elegant, light and thin design.

Likewise, Android technology has been the north of many for allowing the download of the most popular mobile applications on the market.

From the point of view of content producers in the world, there has also been a race to develop products that can be consumed from different devices, especially from smartphones, since this mode of connection today represents 75% of web traffic.

References

1. Goodwin, Richard (2017). The History of Mobile Phones. Recovered from: knowyourmobile.com.
2. Meyers, Justin (2011). Watch the incredible 70-year evolution of the cell phone. Recovered from: businessinsider.com.
3. Telegraph (s / f). How mobile phones changed your world. Recovered from: telegraph.co.uk.
4. Us Witch (2016). History of mobile phones. Recovered from: uswitch.com.