Fifteen years ago seeing a cellular phone was quite rare, and in today's technologically advanced world, just about everyone has a cellular phone. Adults, teenagers, and even children carry around portable models of the telephone.
Through the interesting history of the cellular phone, one can get the picture of how the portable wonder became what it is today.
In 1843, a skilled, analytical chemist named Michael Farady began exhaustive research to find a space that could conduct electricity. He told of his findings, and these advances of 19th century science and technology have had an incalculable effect on the development of today's cellular phone.
By the year of 1865 a dentist by the name of Dr. Mahlon Loomis became what is thought to be the first person who was able to communicate wirelessly through the atmosphere. Between 1866 and 1873 transmitted telegraphic messages 18 miles between the tops of the Cohocton and Beorse Deer Mountains in Virginia.
Dr. Mahlon Loomis developed a way of transmitting and receiving messages by using Earth's atmosphere as a conductor. He also launched kites enclosed with copper screens that were linked to the ground with copper wires. He was awarded a $50,000 research grant from Congress to continue his studies.
Then, in the year of 1973, a former general manager from the systems division of Motorola, Dr. Martin Cooper, became who is thought to be the inventor of the first portable handset. Dr. Cooper was also the first person to make a call using a portable cell phone.
In New York, he set up a base station with the first working prototype of a cell phone, the Motorola Dyna-Tac. He and Motorola took this technology to New York to show the public.
Later on, in 1977, the cell phone went public and public testing began. Chicago was the home for the first trials with 2,000 people. After Chicago, there were later trials in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, and then it spread to Japan in 1979.
Usual technologies changed in 1988 when the CTIA - Cellular Technology Industry Association - was formed to lay out realistic goals for cell phone providers. Research for new applications of development was included.
In 1991 the Telecommunications Industry Association set a new standard with the creation of the TDMA Interim Standard 54.
Cell phones have had quite a long journey. Although there was a great demand for cell phones, it took 37 years for them to become commercially available in the United States.
Wireless service was actually invented almost 50 years ago, so it's hard to believe that cell phones have only become popular over the past couple of decades. Currently, there are more than 60 million people who own cell phones.
Read more from Joe Goertz at: technology-mag.com
