Feldman, David (1989). When Do Fish Sleep? And Other Imponderables of Everyday Life. Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. p.15. ISBN 0-06-016161-2. A man talks on his mobile phone while standing near a conventional telephone box, which stands empty. Enabling technology for mobile phones was first developed in the 1940s but it was not until the mid-1980s that they became widely available. By 2011, it was estimated in Britain that more calls were made using mobile phones than wired devices. [1] February 1901: United States Court of Appeal declares void Emile Berliner's patent for a telephone transmitter used by the Bell telephone system

Director schemes were gradually introduced in other major cities of the UK — Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. February 1876, about 9:30 am: Gray or his lawyer brings Gray's patent caveat for the telephone to the Washington, D.C. Patent Office (a caveat was a notice of intention to file a patent application. It was like a patent application, but without a request for examination, for the purpose of notifying the patent office of a possible invention in process). Bourseul, Charles (1854), Transmission électrique de la parole, Paris: L'Illustration, 26 August 1854. (in French) a b Valéry, Nicholas (11 April 1974). "Debut for the telephone on a chip". New Scientist. Reed Business Information. 62 (893): 65–7. ISSN 0262-4079.

All that changed on April 3rd of 1973, when Martin Cooper, a Motorola executive, made the first handheld cell phone call. The guy he rang was his rival at Bell Labs. February 1879: Bell Telephone merges with the New England Telephone Company to form the National Bell Telephone Company. Theodore Vail takes over operations. Announced in November 1997 [58] and issued from February 1998 onwards [53] the 0820 range was designated "internet for schools". Phil Porter, a Bell Labs engineer, proposed that cell towers be at the corners of the hexagons rather than the centers and have directional antennas pointing in 3 directions. April 1877: A telephone line connects the workshop of Charles Williams, Jr., located in Boston, to his house in Somerville, Massachusetts, at 109 Court Street in Boston, where Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson had previously experimented with their telephone. The telephones became No. 1 and 2 in the Bell Telephone Company. [8]

December 1877: Western Union enters the telephone business using Edison's superior carbon microphone transmitter. Martin Cooper, et al., "Radio Telephone System", US Patent number 3,906,166; Filing date: 17 October 1973; Issue date: September 1975; Assignee MotorolaThe Second World War (1939-1945) saw the military use of radio-telephony links. Hand-held radio transceivers have been available since the 1940s. Mobile telephones for automobiles became available from some telephone companies in the 1940s. Early devices were bulky, consumed large amounts of power, and the network supported only a few simultaneous conversations. (Modern cellular networks allow automatic and pervasive use of mobile phones for voice- and data-communication.) John F. Mitchell, [36] [37] [38] Motorola's chief of portable communication products and Cooper's boss in 1973, played a key role in advancing the development of handheld mobile telephone equipment. Mitchell successfully pushed Motorola to develop wireless communication products that would be small enough to use anywhere and participated in the design of the cellular phone. [39] [40] Early generations [ edit ] Bell Labs conducts extensive field trial of an electronic central office in Morris, Illinois, known at the Morris System. Five new area codes were introduced for cities that were running low on phone numbers—and a digit was prefixed to each existing local number to allow for future expansion. The international access code also changed on "PhONEday", from 010 to 00 thus meeting the international call prefix standard set by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Both BT and Mercury issued only 10-digit freephone numbers to users after 1997. [44] With the market opened up to competition, many other companies also allocated these numbers to users.

The birth of 2G and GSM

May 1965: The world's first electronic switching system commences commercial service in Succasunna, New Jersey, in form of the 1ESS. The Chinese FCC's technical standard: "YD/T 1591-2006, Technical Requirements and Test Method of Charger and Interface for Mobile Telecommunication Terminal Equipment" (PDF). Dian yuan (in Chinese). Izmerov, Oleg. "Отечественные Мобильники 50-Х"[Domestic Mobile Phones of the 50's]. Окно В Прошлое (in Russian). Robert Hooke creates an acoustic string telephone that conveys sounds over a taut extended wire by mechanical vibrations. [1] [2] August 1876: Alexander Graham Bell makes the world's first long-distance telephone call, one-way, not reciprocal, over a distance of about 6 miles, between Brantford and Paris, Ontario, Canada.