When it comes to mobile phones, the country is pretty much split in half. Some of us will remember a time when there were no mobile phones, others will have only ever known and the age of digital meaning they are brought up with mobile phones tablets laptops et cetera.

Mobile Phone History

It might surprise you to know that the history of mobile phones is a lot more extensive than just the last 15 to 20 years. In fact, the first wireless telephone patent was issued by the US patent office of Kentucky in 1908. While the development was not particularly successful, there were rudimentary wireless communications back then, but it is widely accepted that the first mobile phone call in the world was made in 1973.

Motorola Made the First Mobile Phone Call

It was made by an employee of Motorola a Martin Cooper who was a senior engineer, and on April 3 he made a gloating phone call to one of the rival companies to let them know that he was speaking using a mobile phone. It may have been mobile, but it wasn’t what you would call particularly small it took over 10 hours to charge and only actually gave 30 minutes of talk time. It took a further decade before Motorola was actually ready to sell the mobile phone and it was called the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X.

30 Minutes Talk Time

At the time they hadn’t managed to make many improvements to the functionality it still only offered 30 minutes of talk time, but it could hold 30 phone numbers in the memory, and it had a six-hour standby time. If you wanted to purchase one of these handsets, it would set you back around £2639.

When they were first released the mobile phone industry was actually aiming at other businesses it wasn’t really designed to be something for every individual to carry, but more important business people to sort that flew on Concord and drove Jaguars, not everyday people.

Nokia Enter the Market

Fast forward to the early 1990s and Nokia had entered the forum along with NEC, but mobile still had a long way to go before they reached the sort of thing we see today and they got the reputation of being brick-like as they were so large and heavy. The 1983 offering weighed over a kilogram, and once Nokia join the race, their first handset weighed 800 g which was an improvement of sorts (the iPhone XS Max weighs 208g for comparison).

It was from 1990 to 1995 that we saw mobile phones really start to explode and become something that everyone could afford to have. Manufacturers realise they need to improve things like standby charging and talk time and of course they need to be small enough to fit in handbags and pockets. The first mobile phones tended to have some form of aerial, with Nokia favouring a solid moulded plastic piece and Motorola having a pull-out finer aerial. 

From there on the race was on, new manufacturers came, older ones left, and we have the booming industry of today. Thankfully the dodgy aerial has gone, and they are aesthetically so much more pleasing to own.