35 Years Later, Father
of Cell Phone Looks
Back, Ahead
Martin Cooper, 79,
recalls the rush to
build the cell phone
back in the early 1970s.
As a general manager at
a small wireless
communication company
called Motorola, he
remembers hearing that
AT&T was pursuing
cellular technology for
car phones.
But he realized, based
on the success of
Motorola's pagers, that
cell phones needed to be
personal and portable.
He knew that people
wouldn't be satisfied
with just a phone in
their car. So he got to
working on what would be
the first true cell
phone. On April 3, 1973,
Cooper walked outside on
the streets of New York
and made the first phone
call on a cell phone
shaped like a brick.
"We predicted the
concept of a telephone
that isn't tied to a
wall or a desk. We
anticipated that
everyone would have a
cell phone," Martin said
during a recent phone
interview. "We joked
that when you're born
you would be assigned a
cell phone and if you
didn't answer you had
died."
Cooper's vision of cell
phone ubiquity is coming
true. About 85 percent
of the population has a
cell phone now, though
luckily we all don't
feel obligated to answer
it at every moment.
He said he's not
surprised that cell
phones are so integral
to people's lives. He
realized that early on
when the first pager
users refused to give up
their devices. Mobility
is pretty addictive.
"Our early pagers were
not that good so when we
tried to take some
products away from
people, they absolutely
refused," Cooper said.
It didn't happen
overnight. It took
another 10 years before
commercial cell phone
service became
available. It wasn't
until 2000 that we had
100 million subscribers
in the U.S. Now we have
257 million. And the
first Motorola phones
were hardly cheap. About
$4,000.
That's one of the big
surprises looking back,
said Cooper, how cheap
the phones have become.
Now you can buy a phone
that's completely
subsidized by a carrier.
"We used to think it
would be impossible to
think of a free cell
phone that you gave
away," he said.
Cooper is on to new
things now.
He and his wife Arlene
Harris started GreatCall,
makers of Jitterbug, a
simplified cell phone
catering to seniors. The
cell phone features
larger buttons, a bigger
screen, simpler
functions and a 24 hour
operator who can connect
calls. Users and their
relatives can also add
contact numbers through
the Jitterbug website.
Cooper said the
Jitterbug represents the
next stage in the
evolution of the cell
phone. Now that we've
introduced the device to
the masses, it's time to
go after specific needs
of niche users, who may
be left out by the
high-tech, feature-laden
handsets of today.
"I think young people
don't appreciate that
when you're in your 70s,
you'll lose patience for
techie stuff and you may
decide that you want a
simple device," Cooper
said. "The Jitterbug
identifies and caters to
that market."
Cooper said in the
future, he expects
cellular connectivity to
be everywhere, in all
kinds of machines,
whether its gaming
handhelds or medical
monitoring devices. The
wireless connectivity
that brought the
portable phone to life
will migrate to
everything else around
us, he said. "We have
the freedom of voice.
Now we'll have it with
devices."
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