History of mobile phones facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

The history of mobile phones tells the story of how our phones became wireless and portable. These amazing devices connect us to the world without needing a physical wire. While people have sent messages over distances for a long time, truly mobile phones that could connect to the regular phone network are quite new. Early mobile phones were huge and hard to use, nothing like the small smartphones we carry today. Over the years, wireless technology has changed a lot. Now, smartphones are everywhere, and most people use mobile broadband to get Internet access on the go.

A man talks on his mobile phone near an old telephone box. Mobile phone technology became widely available in the mid-1980s.

Early Ideas for Mobile Phones

People dreamed of mobile phones long before they existed. In 1917, a Finnish inventor named Eric Tigerstedt even patented a "pocket-size folding telephone." Imagine that, a foldable phone over 100 years ago!

Around the same time, in the 1920s, German trains began testing wireless phones for passengers. This allowed people to make calls while traveling between cities like Berlin and Hamburg.

Karl Arnold's 1926 drawing shows people using mobile phones in public.

Artists and writers also imagined mobile phones. In 1906, a cartoon showed people using wireless devices in a park. Later, in 1926, artist Karl Arnold drew a funny picture of people talking on mobile phones in the street. Even the famous detective Dick Tracy got a two-way wrist radio in 1946!

First Steps Towards Wireless Calling

During Second World War (1939–1945), soldiers used hand-held radios to talk to each other. These were like early mobile phones, but they couldn't connect to the regular phone network.

In the 1940s, some telephone companies started offering mobile phones for cars. These early car phones were very big and used a lot of power. Only a few people could make calls at the same time.

In 1946, engineers in the United States created a system for people to make calls from their cars. This was called Mobile Telephone Service. It was a big step, but it had limited coverage. Calls were also not private, as anyone with the right radio equipment could listen in.

A Russian engineer, Leonid Kupriyanovich, developed some experimental pocket-sized radios in the late 1950s and early 1960s. One model from 1961 weighed only 70 grams, small enough to fit in your hand!

In 1965, a Bulgarian company showed off a mobile phone system that could connect to a base station. One base station could serve up to 15 customers.

The Generations of Mobile Phones

Mobile phone technology has improved through different "generations."

0G (Zero Generation) refers to early services like the ones in cars.
1G (First Generation) brought analog cellular networks in 1979.
2G (Second Generation) introduced digital cellular networks in 1991.
3G (Third Generation) offered faster internet data services starting in 2001.
4G (Fourth Generation) launched in 2006 with even faster internet-based networks.
5G (Fifth Generation) began rolling out in 2019, bringing super-fast speeds and very low delays.

Early Mobile Phone Services

The First Mobile Telephone Service (MTS)

In 1946, a company called AT&T launched the first Mobile Telephone Service (MTS) in the US. By 1948, it was available in many towns. However, it was quite rare, with only about 5,000 customers.

These early mobile phones were huge, weighing around 80 pounds (about 36 kg)! To make a call, you had to press a button to talk and release it to listen, like a walkie-talkie. An operator also had to connect your call manually.

MTS was very expensive and had a big problem: only three people in a city could make calls at the same time! This was because there were only three radio channels available.

In the UK, a similar car-based system called "Post Office Radiophone Service" started in 1959. It also needed an operator to connect calls.

Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS)

In 1965, AT&T made a big improvement with the Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS). This new system had more radio channels, so more people could make calls at once. It also allowed customers to dial calls themselves, without an operator. The phones became a bit smaller and lighter too.

Even with these improvements, demand for mobile phones was still much higher than the system could handle. In New York City, for example, 2,000 customers shared only 12 channels, often waiting 30 minutes to make a call!

Radio Common Carrier (RCC)

An early mobile radio telephone.

In the 1960s, other phone companies offered a service called Radio Common Carrier (RCC) to compete with AT&T. These systems used different radio frequencies.

RCC systems were not standardized, meaning a phone from one city might not work in another. There was no "roaming" like we have today. Some of these phones were still "push-to-talk," while others looked more like regular phones with dials.

Other Early Systems

In 1969, some trains in the US had special pay phones that let passengers make calls while the train was moving.

In Europe, different countries developed their own mobile radio systems. Norway had OLT in 1966, and Finland launched ARP in 1971. These were all manually controlled until the automatic NMT system arrived in the early 1980s.

The Idea of Cellular Networks

A modern cell tower with antennas pointing in different directions.

The biggest breakthrough for mobile phones was the idea of a "cellular network." In 1947, engineers at Bell Labs imagined dividing areas into small, hexagon-shaped "cells." Each cell would have its own base station, or cell tower.

This idea allowed for something called "frequency reuse." It meant that the same radio frequencies could be used in different, non-neighboring cells without causing interference. This greatly increased the number of calls that could happen at once.

Another important idea was "handoff." This allows your phone call to seamlessly move from one cell tower to the next as you travel. Without handoff, your call would drop every time you left a cell's area. Engineers like Philip T. Porter also suggested using special antennas on cell towers to direct signals better. This helped reduce interference and made the system more efficient.

The First Automatic Mobile Systems

Before cellular networks, some countries developed early automatic mobile phone systems. In 1956, Sweden launched the first fully automatic mobile phone system for cars, called MTA. You could make calls using a rotary dial in your car. These phones were very heavy, about 40 kg! Later, in 1962, an improved version called MTB used push buttons and newer technology.

The Soviet Union also developed a car phone system called "Altay" in 1958. It started in Moscow in 1963 and spread to many cities.

In 1971, Finland launched the ARP network, which was one of the first successful public mobile phone networks.

The First Handheld Mobile Phone

Martin Cooper in 2007 with a 1972 prototype of a Motorola handheld mobile phone.

Before 1973, mobile phones were mostly stuck in cars. Then, Motorola changed everything. On April 3, 1973, Martin Cooper, a Motorola researcher, made the first-ever call from a handheld mobile phone! He called his rival at Bell Labs.

The phone Cooper used was a prototype. It weighed 2 kg (about 4.4 pounds) and was quite large. You could only talk for 30 minutes before needing to recharge it for 10 hours! This phone, often called "the Brick," didn't become available to the public until 1983.

John F. Mitchell, Cooper's boss, was also key in making handheld mobile phones a reality. He pushed Motorola to create small, portable wireless devices.

Mobile Phone Generations

Newer mobile phone technology has been released in waves, called "generations."

1G – Analog Cellular Phones

The first automatic analog cellular systems appeared in 1979 in Japan for car phones. Soon after, in 1981, the NMT system launched in Nordic countries.

In North America, the Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) was introduced in 1983. This was a big step, but 1G phones had problems. Calls were not encrypted, so anyone with a radio scanner could listen in. They were also easy to "clone," meaning someone could copy your phone's identity.

On March 6, 1983, the famous DynaTAC 8000X mobile phone launched in the US. It cost a lot to develop and took over ten years to reach the market. Despite its short battery life and heavy weight, many people wanted one.

2G – Digital Cellular Phones

Two early GSM mobile phones from 1991.

The 1990s brought the "second generation" (2G) of mobile phones. These systems used digital signals instead of analog, making calls clearer and more secure. Two main systems competed: GSM (from Europe) and CDMA (from the US).

2G led to a huge increase in mobile phone use. This era also saw the start of prepaid phones.

In 1991, the first GSM network launched in Finland. In 1993, the IBM Simon was introduced. This was possibly the world's first smartphone! It combined a phone, pager, fax, and PDA. It had a calendar, address book, email, and a touchscreen with a keyboard.

With 2G, phones became much smaller and lighter. This was thanks to better batteries and more efficient electronics.

Text Messaging and Mobile Content

2G also introduced SMS or text messaging. The first machine-generated text was sent in the UK in 1992, and the first person-to-person text in Finland in 1993. Prepaid services made texting very popular, especially among young people.

Mobile phones also started offering media content. In 1998, the first downloadable content sold was the ringtone. Advertising on mobile phones began in Finland in 2000 with a free news service.

Early mobile payments were tested in 1998 in Finland and Sweden, allowing people to pay for things like vending machine drinks.

In 1999, Japan's NTT DoCoMo introduced the first full internet service on mobile phones.

3G – Mobile Broadband

The iPhone 3GS, a popular 3G smartphone.

As 2G phones became common, people wanted more data, like internet access. 2G technology wasn't fast enough, so the industry developed 3G. The main difference was using "packet switching" for data, which is more efficient than "circuit switching" used in older systems.

The first 3G trial network launched in Japan in 2001, followed by the first commercial 3G network later that year. Other countries, like South Korea and the US, launched 3G networks in 2002.

During the development of 3G, some "2.5G" systems like GPRS and EDGE offered faster data speeds on existing 2G networks, bridging the gap.

The faster speeds of 3G changed the industry. For the first time, you could stream radio and even TV content to your phone!

Later, an improved 3G technology called High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), also known as 3.5G, offered even faster data transfer speeds, up to 14.0 Mbit/s.

By the end of 2007, there were 295 million 3G subscribers worldwide. In some countries like Japan and South Korea, only 3G phones were sold.

Mobile Internet Devices

With good 3G coverage, special devices appeared to access the mobile web. "Dongles" plugged into computers via USB. Later, "compact wireless routers" like the Novatel MiFi allowed multiple devices to connect to 3G internet over Wi-Fi.

Some laptops, called "netbooks," started to have mobile data built-in. You could insert a SIM card directly. By 2010, e-readers like the Amazon Kindle and tablets like the iPad also began to include built-in wireless internet.

4G – Native IP Networks

The Nokia Lumia 1020, a 4G smartphone.

By 2009, it was clear that 3G networks would soon be overloaded by apps that used a lot of data, like streaming media. So, the industry developed fourth-generation (4G) technologies, promising speeds up to ten times faster than 3G. The first public LTE service launched in Scandinavia in 2009.

4G changed how calls worked. It moved away from "circuit switching" and used an "all-IP network." This meant voice calls were treated like any other streaming audio, using packet switching over the mobile network via VoLTE. 4G technology is now used for many things, including mobile broadband, the internet of things (IoT), and streaming music and video.

5G – Cellular Mobile Communications

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 5G and Galaxy Z Flip3 5G, modern 5G foldable phones.

The fifth-generation (5G) cellular networks began rolling out worldwide in 2019. 5G offers incredibly fast download speeds, reaching gigabits per second, and very low network delays (as little as 1 millisecond).

These improvements are vital for new technologies like online gaming, augmented and virtual reality, autonomous vehicles, and the internet of things (IoT). 5G helps these applications work smoothly and quickly.

6G Network

6G is the sixth generation of wireless communication technology. It is currently being researched and developed, with commercial use expected to start around 2030.

Satellite Telephone

A satellite phone is a special type of mobile phone that connects to satellites orbiting Earth instead of ground-based cell sites. This means they can work in almost any remote location, as long as they have a clear view of the sky and the satellite.

The big advantage of a satellite phone is that it works where regular cell service doesn't. They are also very reliable during natural disasters or emergencies when local communication systems might be down.

The Inmarsat system, developed in 1979, uses satellites in high geostationary orbit to cover most of the world. Other systems, like Iridium and Globalstar, use many smaller satellites in low Earth orbit closer to Earth.

Satellite Connectivity in Regular Mobile Phones

In the early 2020s, phone makers started adding satellite features to regular smartphones. This allows people in remote areas, outside of cellular range, to send messages or make emergency calls.

For example, the Apple iPhone 14 (released in 2022) and iPhone 15 (released in 2023) can send emergency text messages via Globalstar satellites. In 2022, T-Mobile partnered with Starlink to offer satellite services using existing phone spectrum, which became available in late 2024. Companies like AST SpaceMobile and Qualcomm are also working on ways for regular smartphones to connect to satellites for messaging and other services. In 2024, Iridium introduced Project Stardust, a service planned for 2026 that will provide messaging and emergency communications for 5G devices using its low-earth orbit satellites.

Mobile Device Charger Standards

USB power standards for mobile charger
Port	Current	Voltage	Power (max)
Micro-USB	500 mA	5 V	2.5 W
	1 A	5 V	5 W
	2 A	5 V	10 W
USB-C	100 mA to 3 A	5 V	15 W
	1.7 A to 3 A	9 V	27 W
	1.8 A to 3 A	15 V	45 W
	2.25 A to 5 A	20 V	100 W

Old mobile phone charger plugs before universal standards.

For a long time, every phone brand seemed to have its own unique charger. This meant you needed many different adapters!

Towards Universal Chargers

In the late 2000s, there was a big push for a universal charger standard.

In 2007, the Open Mobile Terminal Platform group (OMTP), which included companies like Nokia and Samsung, agreed on Micro-USB as a common connector.
The GSM Association (GSMA) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) also supported this, calling it an "energy-efficient one-charger-fits-all" solution.
China was the first to require all new mobile phones to use a USB port for charging by 2007.

The Micro-USB port was common on many phones.

Later, USB-C became the new standard. In 2022, the European Union passed a law requiring new smartphones to use USB-C as a universal charger by the end of 2024.

The USB-C interface is now common on smartphones.

For many years, Apple's iPhone used its own special charging ports (first the 30-pin connector, then Lightning). However, with the iPhone 15 series in 2023, Apple finally switched to USB-C. Now, almost all major phone brands use USB-C for charging.