Farley- Mobile Telephone History
In "Mobile Telephone History," Farley discusses the relatively brief history of mobile phones. Even though 1945 seems like an eon ago, it really is not a long time in the elaborate history of communications technologies. The first time that mobile technologies were being created was right after WWII. It was realized that a new communications system would be needed and, in Europe, during reconstruction would have been a good time to implement that. In the early history of mobile phones, most devices were attached to vehicles. The main transmitter was in the trunk while a receiver/microphone would have been up in the front of the car. AT&T basically ran the market until the asked the FCC for more frequencies to use. To their surprise, the FCC opened up the frequencies for other, smaller companies in order to introduce some competition into the market. These companies were more specialized and did a better job than AT&T because of the fact that they used automated dialing instead of having to pay operators to place every single made call. Even though it took AT&T many years to catch up to the RCCs, they stuck around as a company thanks to the fact that they were always number one in the landline business. The first time that mobile devices were used for commercial use was in the 70's on the rail systems. Basically, these were like pay phones we see today but were mobile.
The invention of the transistor finally made it possible for cell phones to be something that people could use everyday and even own one for themself. As we saw with computers, transistors made devices much smaller and more dependable than ones using glass vacuum tubes. Eventually, companies began making and marketing the smaller cell phones like we see today in the 90's. I for one cannot imagine what it would be like without my cell phone. I use it all of the time. I feel naked without it. It's gotten to the point where if my mom calls me and I do not answer or call back immediatley, she gets worried. I also thought that the mention of the car phones was cool because I remember my mom having one in her Dodge Intrepid. I dont think that she used it very much, and it probably wasnt even very safe, but we can see how that has progressed with services such as OnStar today.