For a device that most of us feel we couldn’t live without, mobile phones really haven’t been around that long. The phones that we are so used to nowadays have only really been in circulation for around 20 years. Here is a brief history of our favourite gadget:

Smartphones are quite new, although the very beginning of the story dates back to 1908. The first patent for a wireless telephone was issued in Kentucky in 1908. However, it wasn’t until the 1940s that AT&T engineers manufactured cells for base stations to be used with mobile telephones. For your new phone, consider Vodafone Tullamore at a site like King Communications vodafone Tullamore

The early mobile phones were actually just a form of two-way radio that were used by services such as taxis and emergency response vehicles. It would take until 1973 for the first handheld device to be mass produced and this was achieved by Motorola. The first phones were called 0G or zero generation phones and we are now on 4G or 5G technology.

Some interesting landmarks along the way:

1926 – First class passengers on the German rail network between Hamburg and Berlin were the first commercial customers to be offered use of mobile telephony services.

1946 – First calls made on car radiotelephone in Chicago.

1982 – Industry leaders gathered in Stockholm from 11 different European nations to discuss whether Europe needed a digital cellular phone system and how possible this was technically and politically.

1985 – Ernie Wise made the first public call in the UK using a mobile phone whilst dressed as a Victorian coachman!