2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the first mobile call. The first mobile cellular phone call was made on April 3, 1973, on Sixth Avenue near the Midtown Hilton Hotel in New York City. The call was made by Marty Cooper the “father of the cell phone” who worked for Motorola. He wrote in his book, “Cutting the Cord,” that he called his rival Joel Engel, head of AT&T’s Bell Labs, to tell him that his team at Motorola had created a functional portable phone.
First mobile call
Few people would recognize that first cellphone as a mobile. The “mobile” DynaTAC (Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage) phone, was 9 inches tall and weighed 2.5 pounds. It took ten hours to charge a battery that only allowed 35 minutes of talk time. It took another 10 years for commercial cellular service to become a reality because cell towers and other infrastructure had to be put in place first. In 1983, Motorola started selling the first cell phones for a price-tag of between $3,500 and $4,000.
How things have changed in 50 years. Since 2015, there have been more cell phones than people in the world. A survey commissioned by cloud communications company Sinch revealed that 23% of those surveyed said they couldn’t last an hour without their cell phone. Additionally, nearly 72% said they couldn’t imagine going more than a weekend without their mobile phone.
Celebrating that first call
To honor of the 50th anniversary of that first cellular call, Mr. Cooper, who is 94 years old, re-enacted that call in New York City. There was to be a “Celebrate the Call” sidewalk historic marker place on Sixth Avenue near the midtown Hilton near where that first call was made. However, the marker and commemoration event had to be cancelled. According to Fierce, the NYC Transportation Department has not approved the marker.
The organizers posted this to the Celebratethecall website.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
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