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By
Mary
Bellis
Cellular: A type of wireless
communication that is most familiar to mobile phones users. It's called
'cellular' because the system uses many base stations to divide a service
area into multiple 'cells'. Cellular calls are transferred from base station
to base station as a user travels from cell to cell. - definition from
the Wireless Advisor
Glossary.
The basic concept of cellular phones
began in 1947, when researchers looked at crude mobile (car) phones and
realized that by using small cells (range of service area) with frequency
reuse they could increase the traffic capacity of mobile phones substantially.
However at that time, the technology to do so was nonexistent.
Anything to do with broadcasting
and sending a radio or television message out over the airwaves comes under
Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) regulation. A cell phone is a type
of two-way radio. In 1947, AT&T proposed that the FCC allocate
a large number of radio-spectrum frequencies so that widespread mobile
telephone service would become feasible and AT&T would have a incentive
to research the new technology. We can partially blame the FCC for the
gap between the initial concept of cellular service and its availability
to the public. The FCC decided to limit the amount of frequencies available
in 1947, the limits made only twenty-three phone conversations possible
simultaneously in the same service area - not a market incentive for research.
The FCC reconsidered its position
in 1968, stating "if the technology to build a better mobile service works,
we will increase the frequencies allocation, freeing the airwaves for more
mobile phones." AT&T and Bell Labs proposed a cellular system to the
FCC of many small, low-powered, broadcast towers, each covering a 'cell'
a few miles in radius and collectively covering a larger area. Each tower
would use only a few of the total frequencies allocated to the system.
As the phones traveled across the area, calls would be passed from tower
to tower.
Individual Inventors & Mobile
Phone Patents
Dr.
Martin Cooper for Motorola.
US03906166
09/16/1975
Radio telephone system
Inventors: Martin Cooper, Richard
W. Dronsuth, ; Albert J. Mikulski, Charles N. Lynk Jr., James J. Mikulski,
John F. Mitchell, Roy A. Richardson, John H. Sangster
Dr Martin Cooper, a former general
manager for the systems division at Motorola, is considered the inventor
of the first modern portable handset. Cooper made the first call on a portable
cell phone in April 1973. He made the call to his rival, Joel Engel, Bell
Labs head of research. Bell Laboratories introduced the idea of cellular
communications in 1947 with the police car technology. However, Motorola
was the first to incorporate the technology into portable device that was
designed for outside of a automobile use. Cooper and his co-inventors are
listed above.
By 1977, AT&T and Bell Labs had
constructed a prototype cellular system. A year later, public trials of
the new system were started in Chicago with over 2000 trial customers.
In 1979, in a separate venture, the first commercial cellular telephone
system began operation in Tokyo. In 1981, Motorola and American Radio telephone
started a second U.S. cellular radio-telephone system test in the Washington/Baltimore
area. By 1982, the slow-moving FCC finally authorized commercial cellular
service for the USA. A year later, the first American commercial analog
cellular service or AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone Service) was made available
in Chicago by Ameritech.
Despite the incredible demand, it
took cellular phone service 37 years to become commercially available in
the United States. Consumer demand quickly outstripped the 1982 system
standards. By 1987, cellular telephone subscribers exceeded one million
and the airways were crowded.
Three ways of improving services
existed:
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one - increase frequencies allocation
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two - split existing cells
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three - improve the technology
The FCC did not want to handout any
more bandwidth, and building/splitting cells would have been expensive
and would have added bulk to the network. To stimulate the growth of new
technology, the FCC declared in 1987 that cellular licensees could employ
alternative cellular technologies in the 800 MHz band. The cellular industry
began to research new transmission technology as an alternative.
Editor's Note: African American
Inventor Henry Sampson
did not invent the cell phone. Sampson is a brilliant and accomplished
inventor who invented a Gamma-Electrical Cell and not a phone cell. Sampson's
patent (US 3,591,860) can be viewed online or in person at the United States
Patent and Trademark Office.
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