Cell phones mark 25 years of service

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The first commercial cell phone call in the U.S. was made 25 years ago this week: Bob Barnett, then president of Ameritech Mobile Communications, placed the first commercial wireless call from inside a Chrysler convertible at Soldier Field in Chicago, to the grandson of Alexander Graham Bell, who was in Berlin, Germany.

The breakthrough had been a long time coming. Ten years earlier, Martin Cooper, widely regarded as the inventor of the cell phone, made a demonstration phone call to Joel Engel while walking the streets of New York. Cooper was then the general manager of Motorola’s communications systems division; Engel was his counterpart at rival AT&T. But only in 1983 did the FCC approve mobile phones.

The first cell phone to market, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x, weighed 28 ounces (thus its nickname, “the brick”) and had a retail price of $3,995.

In 1987, large numbers of the well-to-do had car phones, console-based affairs that gave one the unprecedented ability to conduct business while driving. But a phone that was not attached to anything at all — well, in 1987 that was a billionaire’s toy.

Now, cell phones are ubiquitous, so much so that one might sometimes wish there were fewer of them. There are more than 262 million wireless users in the U.S. alone, and the industry’s annual revenues have topped $140 billion. An entire generation has grown up using cell phones. An increasing number of consumers use them exclusively, going without a land line.

Instead of a nearly 2-pound brick, today’s cell phone weighs as little as 3 ounces. And the price? Phones often can be had for free with the purchase of a service plan.

Today’s cell phones are not just for conversing. They take photos, capture video and browse the Internet. But what they mostly do is transfer text messages. According to Nielsen Mobile, text messaging overtook talking as the primary use for cell phones in the fourth quarter of 2007. The gap is largest among teens, who average 1,742 text messages a month, versus 231 calls.

But it disappears completely among users 45 and older, who still use their phones primarily for the archaic purpose of talking to other people.