50 years of mobile phones: how one phone call changed the world

Status: 04/03/2023 09:25 a.m

In 1973, Motorola engineer Martin Cooper presented a mobile phone to the public for the first time: the device was bulky and 25 centimeters long – but it still caused a sensation.

By Peter Mücke, ARD Studio New York

On the morning of April 3, 1973, Martin Cooper was originally scheduled to appear on a morning show on US television. The Motorola engineer flew to New York to present his company’s new development:

Apparently the TV broadcaster didn’t think it was that important – and they uninvited me again. Then our people found a radio program that was interested instead. I said okay, do an interview. But on the street, so I can show the freedom of being able to use a cell phone without a cable.

Telephone call with a competitor

And so, 50 years ago today, Cooper stood in front of the Hilton Hotel on 6th Avenue in New York and showed the reporter the gray, 25 centimeter long box with antenna.

“The phone weighed more than a kilogram. And you could only make calls for 25 minutes, the battery didn’t last that long,” he reports. But that wasn’t a problem because you couldn’t hold the bulky device for 25 minutes anyway because it was so heavy.

Cooper is now 94 years old and still remembers the call he made with that monster phone back then:

I got my phone book out of my pocket and looked up Joel Engel’s number. That was my colleague at our competitor Bell Labs, who were also working on the technology. Surprisingly, he even answered the phone himself and not his secretary. And I said, ‘Hi, Joel! This is Marty Cooper. I am calling you from a cell phone, a real cell phone – a personal portable phone.

Die mobile Sensation

The Bell company relied on the further development of car phones, which already existed at the time and for which mobile phone networks were already available in some major US cities. The Motorola device also relied on this: the first mobile device to take with you. A sensation – even in New York.

“I don’t know what you know about New Yorkers. But they’re really jaded,” Cooper explains. “People just look right through you, they don’t see anyone. But here’s the thing: they had never seen anyone with a cordless phone. Even these arrogant New Yorkers were impressed. Just like everyone we showed the phone to .”

But it took another ten years before the technology actually made it onto the market. Before that, politicians had to be convinced and the industry had to agree on a uniform mobile radio standard, which initially only worked in a few large cities. The first system was completed in Chicago in September 1983, followed by Washington DC. Only then could you buy cell phones. They were initially limited to the network in one city. “And things didn’t work particularly well,” says Cooper.

From oddity to mass phenomenon

Motorola then released the $4,000 DynaTAC 8000X, which looked virtually identical to the prototype Cooper had made the historic call with ten years earlier. The company also started massive campaigns to promote the “mobile phone revolution”:

“At the moment, it’s mainly business people who use mobile phones. But soon there will be more. Then cell phone calls will become just as normal as looking at a digital watch, using a calculator or a computer,” said one commercial.

Today, mobile phones have long been everything – and much more. Cell phones are being used less and less just for making calls. You surf the internet, use apps, send text messages and photos. And yet the story of the mobile phone is far from over, says Cooper, now 94 years old:

“The greatest thing that cell phone connectivity will achieve is to increase human productivity. When everyone has a cell phone, poverty will be eliminated. And there will be no more excuses for anyone in the world to go hungry.”