The humble mobile phone is 30 this year

[Arachno 1D]

So given the mobile is having its 30th this year whats your oldest mobile or funny story related to mobile use?

 

 

 

Thirty years ago, just before midnight on New Year's Eve, Michael Harrison slipped away from his family's party at home in Surrey and was driven to Parliament Square.

There, he made history - by making Britain's first mobile phone call to his father Sir Ernest Harrison, the chairman of a new firm called Racal Vodafone.

Vodafone was one of two firms given a licence to operate a new cellular phone network - and it was in a race to beat its rival BT Cellnet to get up and running first.It succeeded - Cellnet's first call came a few weeks into 1985.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30430475

 

 

Just after the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day 30 years ago, history was made when one man called his father on a mobile phone for the first time.

Michael Harrison, son of Vodafone

[Draconian Guppy]

I remember, first time I used a motorola mobile phone was to order pizza! Phone call would cost around $0.35.... They now cost aroudn $0.18  

[abecedarian paradoxious]

"Mobile" telephones have been around for nearly a century.

 

Perhaps you meant "cellular"?

[Arachno 1D]

hand-held mobile radiotelephone is an old dream of radio engineering. One of the earliest descriptions can be found in the 1948 science fiction novel Space Cadet by Robert Heinlein. The protagonist, who has just traveled to Colorado from his home in Iowa, receives a call from his father on a telephone in his pocket. Before leaving for earth orbit, he decides to ship the telephone home "since it was limited by its short range to the neighborhood of an earth-side [i.e. terrestrial] relay office." Ten years later, an essay by Arthur C. Clarke envisioned a "personal transceiver, so small and compact that every man carries one." Clarke wrote: "the time will come when we will be able to call a person anywhere on Earth merely by dialing a number." Such a device would also, in Clarke's vision, include means for global positioning so that "no one need ever again be lost." Later, in Profiles of the Future, he predicted the advent of such a device taking place in the mid-1980s.^[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone

[Arachno 1D]

"Mobile" telephones have been around for nearly a century.

 

Perhaps you meant "cellular"?

You are referring to wireless telephones

 

Before the devices that are now referred to as mobile phones existed, there were some precursors. In 1908 a Professor Albert Jahnke and the Oakland Transcontinental Aerial Telephone and Power Company claimed to have developed a wireless telephone. They were accused of fraud and the charge was then dropped, but they do not seem to have proceeded with production.^[2] Beginning in 1918 the German railroad system tested wireless telephony on military trains between Berlin and Zossen.^[3] In 1924, public trials started with telephone connection on trains between Berlin and Hamburg. In 1925, the company Zugtelephonie A. G. was founded to supply train telephony equipment and in 1926 telephone service in trains of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and the German mail service on the route between Hamburg and Berlin was approved and offered to 1st class travelers.^[4]

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mobile_phones

[firey]

I remember getting bills from the phone company 100+ pages long in special expedited/purolator-esque envelopes detailing each of the 5000+ texts my sister would send in a billing period.

[trek]

I relate images of those big bag phones to Mel Gibson and Lethal Weapon 1

[abecedarian paradoxious]

You are referring to wireless telephones

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mobile_phones

 

I thought telephones that can move around unimpeded by wires are "mobile", by definition, aren't they?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mobile?s=t

1. capable of moving or being moved readily.

 

Cordless telephones, which have been around for more than 30 years are also "mobile", by definition.

 

So, again I say, perhaps you meant "cellular"?

 

And don't make me quote from the article you've cited which supports my assertion.

 

Nevermind:

 

Prior to 1973, mobile telephony was limited to phones installed in cars and other vehicles. Motorola was the first company to produce a handheld mobile phone. On 3 April 1973 when Martin Cooper, a Motorola researcher and executive, made the first mobile telephone call from handheld subscriber equipment, placing a call to Dr. Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs. The prototype handheld phone used by Dr. Cooper weighed 1.1 kg and measured 23 cm long, 13 cm deep and 4.45 cm wide. The prototype offered a talk time of just 30 minutes and took 10 hours to re-charge.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it says right there "mobile telephony" prior to 1973, then goes on to mention "handheld subscriber equipment". So even then 1973 to 2014 is 41 years....

And if you really want to go there, the same article you've cited states:

The first analog cellular system widely deployed in North America was the Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS). It was commercially introduced in the Americas in October 1983, Israel in 1986, and Australia in 1987.

So considering "cellular" as what you're terming "mobile", and right there in the name of it is "Mobile Phone" system... that was, at least in the USA, October 1983, making October 2013 the "30th" anniversary.

And if you haven't yet noticed, check out my avatar and such. I work on cellular sites... ahem "mobile" phone base station towers... for a living.

[Steve Mc]

After doing some research this is a UK thing, if you followed the link the title reads "UK's first mobile phone user remembers his call 30 years on" on the BBC website.  Also we don't call it cellular in the UK, just mobile.