Motorola engineer who made the first handheld call
Joel Engel and Richard Frenkiel
Bell Labs engineers who developed cellular network concepts
Amos Joel
Invented the call handoff system
Plate 090
3 April 1973
New York, United States
No photograph is shown for this exhibition. The museum displays an image only where it can show the object honestly.
About this date
Martin Cooper of Motorola made the first handheld cellular phone call on 3 April 1973. Commercial networks launched in Japan (1979) and the US (1983).
About credit
The cell concept came from Bell Labs. Motorola made the first handheld handset. Cooper placed the first call to a rival at Bell Labs.
Chapter II
The world before
Life before the Mobile Phone
Phones were tied to wires and places. Car phones existed but few could afford them.
II
The human achievement
How it came about
The DynaTAC handset weighed about 1.1 kg and had about 30 minutes of talk time. The first GSM networks launched in 1991 and the iPhone in 2007. Mobile phones reached more people than electricity or clean water in some regions.
III
Understanding the invention
How it works
The Mobile Phone, explained in two steps.
01
Step 01 of 02
Cells
Each tower covers an area. The same frequencies are reused in non-adjacent cells.
Cells
Handoff
IV
The transformation
What changed for humanity
Communication
Calls and messages anywhere.
Development
In places without landlines, phones brought banking and information.
It connected billions of people and, with the smartphone in 2007, put a computer in most pockets.
V
Before and after
Life before and after The Mobile Phone
Before
Find a landline.
After
Call from anywhere.
On larger screens, drag the divider (or use the arrow keys) to give more room to the world before or after.
