The cellphone turns 42 and, love it or hate it, readers say it’s changed their lives.
It was a rough December for Joanne Leonard Teacutter.
She separated from her husband and spent a week in a hotel. Then it was on to a Main Street apartment and the barrage began. Emails, text messages and phone calls from her husband. And when it wasn’t her husband, it was her new landlord calling or sending texts at all hours. Almost nonstop, the phone buzzed and beeped and flashed its unhappy news.
“It was like when the sheep left the pen,” Teacutter recalls. “The wolves circled with fangs bared.”
And then she caught a break, although she didn’t know it at the time. Teacutter’s daughter knocked her mom’s iPhone 5 into the sink while dumping hot water from a steam table.
They tried to dry the phone by packing it in rice, but to no avail. The phone was dead.
Chaos? Misery? Helplessness?
Nope.
“After the initial shock of not having it,” Teacutter says, “I liked it. Not wondering where it is, is it charged, etc. No more messages. No more Facebook drama.”
For three weeks, it was mostly calm and silence in Teacutter’s world – the kind of silence that most of us would be horrified to face. Life without a smartphone? Without email and text, Facebook and Google, in the palm of the hand? Well, doesn’t that send a shiver right down your arm and into your fast-texting fingers?
Operator, ring up Martin Cooper please
“I’ve had a smartphone since 2012. I love it. I use it all the time. I’m using it now,” says Catherine Lavallee of Winslow. “I have instant access to information. I use it to listen to music, read, communicate.”
Most of us have been using a cellphone for a decade or less, but the technology goes back much longer – 42 years, in fact — to 1973, an epoch known more for disco, Pong and gas shortages.
Before the super-fast iPhones and Androids, before the flip phones, bag phones and those giant monstrosities with the pull-out antennas, there was Martin Cooper, a man with a vision.
Cooper, now 86 and retired, was working for Motorola in the 1970s when he thought – or so the story goes – why should a telephone number be assigned to a specific location, like the wall of your home or to your desk at work? Why can’t a number be assigned to a person, wherever that person may roam?
So Cooper did what any MIT genius would do. He invented what he called the “anywhere phone,” but which would officially take on the rather clunky and corporate title DynaTAC. With it, Cooper made the nation’s first cellphone call and – according to Motorola historians – got the wrong number.
Doh!
The DynaTAC was not a phone you would discreetly pull out of your pocket at a restaurant in order to check the score of the game. It was 2 1/2 pounds and 10 inches tall. It provided just 20 minutes of talk before it required a 10-hour charge. It cost nearly $4,000. But Cooper wanted something that he could use to make and receive phone calls anywhere he went, and that’s exactly what he had. This was a man who saw the future and set out to make it happen.
“Smartphone features are designed to enrich customers’ everyday lives, making it easier to get things done and stay connected with friends and family,” says Matt Kasper, U.S Cellular’s director of sales in New England. “When you look at how people use smartphones and wireless devices today, you can see that Cooper was absolutely right.”
Did Cooper foresee what was to come, though? Did he know that people would be carrying on voice and text messages in the grocery store line and engaging in Facebook chats while driving?
Sort of. In 2012, Cooper was interviewed by the online magazine The Verge and said: “When we made that first portable, there were no large-scale integrated circuits. There were no digital cameras. There were no personal computers. There was certainly no Internet, no World Wide Web. So how could you ever imagine that in my lifetime there would be tens of millions of transistors in a cellphone? And doing all the things you could do with that computing power. It happened gradually enough so that I don’t think there was any moment of surprise, but I’m still amazed.”
It may have happened gradually in the world of tech, but from the perspective of an ordinary life, the rise of cellphones seemed to explode all over us. One day we were rocking pagers and change for the phone booth, and the next we’re conducting all of our business in the palms of our hands.
In the ’80s, we started seeing cars with little phone antennas, but those phones were mostly for the rich and shameless.
In the early ’90s, a few companies – Motorola and Nokia, specifically – began focusing on making mobile phones for the mainstream. By the end of the decade, those phones were commercially available, but they still hadn’t achieved ubiquity.
In 2007, Apple released the first iPhone smartphone. At stores around the country, the truly geeky spent hours and sometimes days waiting outside to get their hands on one. That first phone featured quad-band GSM cellular connectivity with GPRS and EDGE support for data transfer, whatever that means.
Several other companies began diving into the smartphone business immediately after and here we are, wondering how we ever got along without them.
The number of people who get by without a mobile phone of some type drops by the day. The rest of us tend to fall into one of two groups – either you use your phone for only the most basic functions . . .
Or you use it for absolutely everything. You hack into your phone’s inner works, install custom operating systems and spend hours at a time in the app store. You use your phone to control your home lights, your thermostat, your garage door and trust it to manage your bank account, your daily calendar, your life.
Cory M. Golob, a ham radio operator and emergency dispatcher who lives in Sabattus, has watched the rise of the cellphone with the eye of a technician.
“Technology has transitioned from analog to digital,” he says. “Data plans didn’t exist when I was in school. If you wanted data, you had to dial into somebody’s bulletin board system and check messages a la war games. . . . Phones became smaller, although the trend is now reversing with phablets coming to the market. Bands have been added for LTE. Companies have gone or merged (I had Cingular wireless when I was in college). Subscription fees have climbed — after all, a cellphone is a UHF radio you pay a subscription fee to use. They are now (virtual) Swiss Army knives that include an alarm clock, GPS, maps, Internet browser, mp3 player and the list goes on. . . . Somewhere in there you can make a phone call too.”
We hope you weren’t driving while texting us
We didn’t get invited to the big cellphone 42nd birthday party, so to celebrate, we asked our readers if they remember their very first cellphones and the journey that followed.
Lavallee, who earlier described how she uses her phone for darn near everything, also acknowledges that the convenience doesn’t always translate into productivity.
“On the other hand I feel really distracted by it a lot,” she says. “Case in point, I should be downstairs doing dishes, but instead I’m screwing around on Facebook answering this question.”
Dave Marquis of Lewiston reports: “Got my first phone in about 1998. It was a great tool, but (I) was always careful with using minutes, as the meter was running just for looking at the damn thing – $20 a month for 40 minutes. Never exceeded my limit. Now I can almost effortlessly communicate with numerous people at all times of the day. Customers can get messages to me rather than bothering me while I’m working. I can answer the questions, send opinions and estimates right from my phone. I really love the tech!”
Shadia Abdulahi, a student at Edward Little High School in Auburn, says: “I got my first cellphone around 6th grade, but it wasn’t a smartphone so I didn’t feel super cool. But then I got my first smartphone in 7th grade and it was an IPhone 4. It was pretty cool and all, but, wow, my grades slipped and soon I was doing bad things too. . . . Now I have an iPhone 5C and I am way more responsible with it.”
Sandy Muehleisen Conrad of Buckfield relates: “Actually had mine for about 6 years, but hardly ever use it. But it’s handy when you’re traveling alone (or lurking), whichever the case may be. Actually forget I have it sometimes, then wonder where the hell is that music coming from.”
Says Tracy Clark Gosselin of Lisbon: “Our first cellphone was a Motorola bag phone. It had a great big battery, a coiled cord to the handset and a flip-up antenna. It worked — sometimes. That was about 15 years ago. I can remember using a party line . . . that goes back a ways!”
Ann Chouinard Brown of Leeds has this to say: “I abhor it and it’s absolutely divine when I forget it. Oh, how I miss those days of the rotary phone and party lines. And numbers were only 5 digits. I remember when we had to add ’78’ to the beginning of the numbers! Oh, my memere was not happy and she actually refused to dial the phone after that!”
Bonnie Waisanen of Lewiston says: “I’ve had a cellphone for 15 years. I think, on some level it has made us dependent and lazy. What I mean is, I can remember nobody’s phone number, not even my mother’s. They are convenient.”
Jim Palmer of New Auburn responds: “With a rotary dial phone you had to memorize phone numbers or look them up in a ‘phone book’ where every landline owner was listed with their name, address and phone number.”
John Snyder of Leeds replies: “When I was a kid, by the year 2000 (it was said) we would all have personal helicopters and jet packs . . . that never happened. But here on my hip is communication to anyone anywhere and the complete knowledge of mankind. What could be better?”
Diane Fuller of Auburn writes: “I don’t remember exactly when I got mine, but I’ve had more than one. It is rarely out of my sight/reach. It gives me peace of mind knowing my three grown kids can easily reach me anywhere anytime (and they do), especially while they’ve been on other continents. I also have some health issues, so I like knowing that help is accessible if needed. Today my 18-month-old grandson — who lives out of state, loves phones and has a thing going with my Siri — called me accidentally on his dad’s phone. Without my cell I would have missed that sweet moment.”
And John Clement, a former Mainer now in Bristol, Tenn., notes this cellphone plus: “We cut the landline about 18 months ago and I just toss the cell in the nightstand when I get home. I get to ignore the phone for real.”
A cellphone timeline
1843: Micheal Faraday, a talented chemist, begins researching the possibility that space can conduct electricity. His research starts the wheels turning for many other 19th-century scientists. At the time, many of them were referred to as “crackpots.”
Mid-1800s: James Clerk Maxwell, in Great Britain, and later Heinrich Hertz in Germany, prove the existence of electromagnetic waves and radio waves, and explore their properties.
1865: A Virginia dentist/scientist, Dr. Mahlon Loomis, develops a method of communicating through the earth’s atmosphere by using an electrical conductor. He does this by flying two kites, that are rigged with copper screens and wires, which are connected to the ground on two separate mountains about 18 miles apart. He later received a grant from the U.S. Congress for $50,000. (A fairly large chunk of change for 1865.)
1866: The first trans-Atlantic telegraph is built (not much to do with cellphones, but a major advancement in communication nonetheless).
Late 1800s-early 1900s: Significant advancements are made in the use and projection of radio waves, led by Italian electrical engineer Guglielmo Marconi and his contemporaries. Discoveries are stimulated by potential military use as well as for entertainment.
1921: Flash forward less than 20 years and the Police Department in Detroit, Mich., is installing mobile radios, operating around 2 MHz, in their squad cars. They encounter many problems, such as overcrowding on the channels and terrible interference.
1934: The U.S. Congress creates the Federal Communications Commission. THE FCC would decide who gets to use certain radio frequencies. Most channels are reserved for emergency use and for the government. Radio is still a baby.
1940s: By now, mobile radios are able to operate at 30 to 40 MHz and become much more common with police departments and the wealthy. Several private companies and organizations begin using such radios for personal gain.
1945: The first mobile-radio-telephone service is established in St. Louis, Mo. The system is comprised of six channels that add up to 150 MHz. The project is approved by the FCC, but due to massive interference, the equipment barely works.
1947: AT&T comes out with the first radio-car-phones that can be used only on the highway between New York and Boston; they are known as push-to-talk phones. The system operates at frequencies of about 35 to 44 MHz, but once again there is a massive amount of interference in the system. AT&T declares the project a failure.
1949: The FCC authorizes the widespread use of many separate radio channels to other carriers. They are known as Radio Common Carriers (RCC) and are the first link between mobile phones and telephones, rather than a widely dispersed radio signal. The RCCs are the first step toward the cellular phone industry, which is designed more for profit than for the general public.
1956: The first real car phones, not car radios or CBs, come into play across the United States. Although, the system is still using push-to-talk phones, it is an improved version that actually works. However, the units are big and bulky, and require a personal operator to switch the calls. A similar system appeared in Sweden a few years earlier.
1964: A new operating system is developed that operates on a single channel at 150 MHz. In essence, this removes the need for push-to-talk operators. Now customers can dial phone numbers directly from their cars. RCC’s are finally taken seriously by the FCC as legitimate competitors to the landline phone companies.
1969: The self-dialing capability is now upgraded to 450 MHz and becomes standard in the United States. This new service is known as (IMTS) Improved Mobile Telephone Service.
1970: Cellphone lobbyists finally win over the FCC and get a range of frequencies allocated specifically for cellphones. The FCC realizes the potential of the industry and can’t ignore it any longer.
1971: AT&T is the first company to propose a modern-day mobile-phone system to the FCC. It involves dividing cities into “cells.” It is the first company to do so.
1973: Dr. Martin Cooper invents the first personal handset while working for Motorola. He takes his new invention, the Motorola DynaTAC, to New York City and shows it to the public. His is credited with being the first person to make a call on a portable mobile-phone.
1974: The FCC actually starts to encourage cellphone companies to push forward the “cellular idea.” But a law suit arises involving Western Electric, which is the closest company to succeeding at the time. The court rules that Western Electric is not allowed to manufacture terminal and network phone systems under the same roof in an effort to prevent a monopoly. But it also prevents progress.
1975: AT&T proposed its own cellular plan for the city of Chicago; the FCC is uneasy about putting the plan into action.
1977: Cellphone testing is permitted by the FCC in Chicago. The Bell Telephone Company gets the license, in partnership with AT&T.
1981: The FCC makes firm rules about the growing cellphone industry dealing with manufacturing. It rules that Western Electric can manufacture products for both cellular and terminal use.
Sources: iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall04/keith/history1.htm and http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/radio_history/radiohist/radio_history.php
If you traveled back to 1970 and described to someone a hand-held gadget capable of transmitting information across the globe in real time, the men in white coats would be upon you in no time. Travel back even further and that kind of wild talk could get you burned as a witch.
Even the brightest minds in technology today admit that they never envisioned commercially available smartphones that can do so much. When you start thinking about the awesome rise of technology, it’s hard to veer away from dizzying thoughts about what the future might hold. What will our devices be doing in 100 years? Or even 10 years, when you ponder Moore’s Law and the always-quickening pace of technology.
While enjoying all the benefits and annoyances of today’s phone, some folks are already engaged in guessing what the future holds. At The Mobile Industry Review, one writer set out to prognosticate on the future of phones.
“Smartphones have evolved to the point where we can perform tasks and activities that would have seemed impossible a few years ago,” writes Roland Banks, a video streaming specialist in the U.K. “Every month, a new smartphone is released that is faster, more powerful and better in every way compared with the models that came before.”
Here’s a look at the future of phone technology. Frankly, I find it rather uninspired – where is the teleportation we were promised?
Augmented reality
This one is already here; it’s only a matter of how far we can take it. Writes Banks: “Augmented reality allows you to bring rather static information to life, such as real-time traffic information overlaid on your car’s windscreen or information about the world around you displayed on a smartphone as you move the camera around.”
Flexible screens
Squeeze your phone into a ball and hurl it into the air to study the birds. Sounds reasonable. Banks writes: “If you could bend your smartphone and manipulate the shape to suit the situation, it would become more portable and useful in some circumstances.”
But again, this isn’t really looking into the future: Way back in 2008, Nokia was looking at devices that could be transformed from a flat-screen device into a curved, bracelet-like display.
Smartphone projectors
Again, it’s technology already being developed. “Imagine being able to play a game on the nearest wall,” writes Banks, “without needing a TV, or showing slides in a meeting without requiring a separate projector.”
It makes me think of holograms, which would be a cool feature to pack into the next Samsung Galaxy. Why simply chat with that strange woman from the other side of the country when you could beam her into your living room? Which brings us to . . .
3D screens and holographic displays
“Several smartphones (such as the Amazon Fire Phone) are already beginning to adopt 3D displays, where objects on the screen move to the position of your head,” Banks writes. “But if 3D ever becomes mainstream (despite some doubt that it will, to wit the failure of 3D TV), what comes next? Holography could be the next major evolution in displays that combine 3D and projections to make objects really pop out into the physical world.”
Now we’re talking.
Super-fast mobile intelligent networks
Network performance: Better, faster, stronger. This is to be expected. “Certainly, 5G networks will play a crucial role in enabling our smartphones to become smarter, accessing information and communicating with other devices more quickly and seamlessly,” according to Banks.
Sorry, all I heard was “still no teleportation.”
— Mark LaFlamme, Staff Writer
Send questions/comments to the editors.
