50 years ago today, first mobile phone call was made
Today marks a momentous occasion in the history of telecommunications. Fifty years back on this day, the first mobile call was placed by Marty Cooper, the inventor of mobile phones. Though today's devices vastly differ from the model used by Cooper, the basics of how the calls are placed have not changed much. Let us take a trip down memory lane.
A comic book character made Cooper dream of mobiles
Cooper was heavily involved in the two-way radio business by the end of the 1960s. However, it was the comic book character Dick Tracy, that germinated the idea of mobile phones in his mind. Tracy communicated with police via a wristwatch and this made Cooper wonder if telephones could also be designed to become small, cordless, and portable. Cooper immediately started working on this.
The first phone for making calls was called "The Brick"
Motorola, a small telecommunications company at the time, stood by Cooper as he started bringing his plans to fruition. He was assisted by a team of engineers who came up with five different designs for mobiles, ranging from sliding to folding to capsules. Finally, Cooper's team made a device nicknamed "The Brick." It weighed roughly 1kg. The ground was now set for placing calls.
The first call was placed on April 3, 1973
Finally, the calendars turned to April 3, 1973. Cooper took out a phone book and punched the number on a cream-colored device while standing on the corner of Sixth Avenue in New York City. He pressed the phone to his ear and rang up Joel Engel, an engineer and rival at Bell Labs. This was the call that would revolutionize our way of life.
How did the conversation go?
Calling up Engel, Cooper said, "Hi, Joel, it's Marty Cooper." To this Engel replied, "Oh, Hi, Marty." What followed next was the most unexpected exchange ever. Cooper said, "Joel, I'm calling you from a cell phone. But a real cell phone, a handheld, personal, portable cell phone." This call placed Cooper's name in history books and aided Motorola in becoming a tech giant.
The first commercial mobile had a 30-minute talk time
The commercial version of "The Brick," the Motorola Dynatac 8000X, was launched in 1984. It weighed 790g, roughly four times the iPhone 14 (172g), and would cost the equivalent of $11,700 (around Rs. 9.6 lakh) today. The device had a 15cm antenna, a 10-hour battery charging time, and 30 minutes of talk time. Messaging and clicking pictures were unthinkable back then.
India's first mobile call took place in 1995
The first mobile call in India was done on July 31, 1995, when the then CM of West Bengal, Jyoti Basu, spoke to erstwhile Union Telecom Minister Sukh Ram. The calls were done on Nokia phones between Kolkata's Writer's Building and Sanchar Bhavan, New Delhi.
