The First Mobile Phone The first mobile telephone calls were made from cars in 1946 by Bell

Mobile . The first prototype phone was demonstrated by John F. Mitchell and Dr Martin Coo per both employees of the Motorola company in 1973 Mitchell became Motorola's chief engineer for its mobile communication products in 1960. Prior to the development of the cell phone, Mitchell and his team of en gineers produced and marketed the first transistorized pager and obtained a pate nt for the concept of portable cell telephony, including small antennae used to help free mobile phone units from car trunks where they were typically installed Cooper set up a cellular base station in New York and made his first call to Joe l Engel, Bell Labs(motorolas competitor) research chief. Ouch. Cooper recalls: "I made numerous calls, including one where I crossed the street while talking to a New York radio reporter -- probably one of the more dangerou s things I have ever done in my life." Motorola spent another 10 years to get the cellphone over technological and regu latory hurdles. Commercial service started in 1983, with a slimmed-down, 16-ounc e DynaTAC. First adopters paid $3,500 for the phone ($7,400 in today's money). I t was 1990 before cellphone service reached a million U.S. subscribers. "People want to talk to other people - not a house, or an office, or a car. Give n a choice, people will demand the freedom to communicate wherever they are, unf ettered by the infamous copper wire. It is that freedom we sought to vividly dem onstrate in 1973," said Martin Cooper. Name: Motorola Prototype Size: 9 x 5 x 1.75 inches Weight: 2.2 pounds Display: None Number of Circuit Boards: 30 Talk time: 35 minutes Recharge Time: 10 hours Features: Talk, listen, dial original news release from motorola in 1973 http://www.motorola.com/staticfiles/ Consumers/Corporate/History/_Documents/Motorola-Heritage-DynaTAC-NewsRelease.pdf