Mobile phone turns 40 years old

Mobile phone evolution

On April 3, 1973, Martin Cooper made the first phone call through a mobile, announcing the world a fact that would revolutionize the communication age.

The creation of this new machinery had as main purpose the communication with a person, and not with a place. Cooper, who worked for Motorola, made the call with the company’s DynaTAC, called ‘brick’, which weigh a kilo and a half and with a battery that lasted 20 minutes. The first person he called was Joel Engel, who worked at Bell Labs, AT&T, Motorola’s rival.

The mobile phone (or cell phone), which turns 40 today, was inspired by the Star Trek Tricorder. It had a special antenna on the roof of the building to take the call and connect it with the landline. Japan was the first country in the world to have this cell phone commercial service (1979), then the Scandinavian nations (1981) and two years after the United States.

Cell phones came to Ecuador in 1993, with the help of the company Porta, now called Claro. Then, former President Sixto Duran Ballen, made the first official call from the Cerro del Carmen (Guayaquil). In 1994, the country had 13,620 users. Currently only Claro has 11.5 million customers.

With the passage of time and the evolution of the cell phone, it became an inevitable accessory in society. In 1999, Mattel launched its first Barbie with a cell phone. The “brick” cell is now considered prehistoric because today these devices are characterized for being small, thin and light  in addition to its storage capacity and intelligence.