“CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?”
ADVANCED TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Beginning 1973 AD
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| The earliest portable phone, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000, ca. 1983. This model was used by the actor Michael Douglas playing Gordon Gekko in the Oliver Stone 1987 film “Wall Street,” and was returned to him upon his release from prison in the 2010 sequel, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.” Credit: Photo by Kathy Schick, courtesy of the Stone Age Institute. All rights reserved. |
‘Telecommunication’ simply means communication over long distances, which can include any way of communicating to someone far away through some sort of signal, including smoke plumes, flags, drums, vocal calls, and so on. More modern telecommunication in the past couple of centuries has relied on transmission of electrical signals, such as by means of telegraph, radio, or television. The classic example of such telecommunication in our everyday lives is seen in the development of mobile phones beginning in the 1970s. The idea for such portable phones, able to be used as one moved from place to place, got started early in the 1900s, but it was in 1973 that a researcher at Motorola, Martin Cooper, put in a patent for, and also made the first telephone call from, a mobile telephone.
The efficiency of electronic telecommunications was greatly enhanced by the development of fiber optics, which uses pulses of light generated by lasers to carry information. Modern telecommunications also are becoming increasingly based on digital rather than analog signals and on wireless communication networks. The development of the world-wide internet of interconnected computers and the World Wide Web of hypertext interlinked, hypertext (e.g. ‘clickable’) documents accessible on the internet, have truly transformed our experience of the world and each other.
WHY SHOULD I CARE?
It is likely that you are carrying a cell phone as you read this. The advent of advanced telecommunications has revolutionized our ability to communicate. No longer do we have to find a telephone booth (its almost impossible to find one any more!) – we just place a cell phone call to our friends, relatives, or, in the case of emergencies, dialing 911 to call the police or fire department.
WEB RESOURCES
This is a history of the cell phone or mobile phone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mobile_phones
This webpage is an evolutionary perspective of cell phone design through pictures.
https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/05/the-evolution-of-cell-phone-design-between-1983-2009/
This is a timeline of the scientific advances that have contributed to the development of the cell phone from 1843 – 1988.
https://cellphones.org/cell-phone-history.html
This is an overview of cell phones, how they work, their structure, their inventors, etc.
https://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/02001/home.htm
