Martin Cooper: The first person to make a cell phone call about 50 years ago

Image Credit: NDTV Martin Cooper made the first public call from a cell phone to one of the individuals he had been vying with to build on April 3, 1973, while standing on a sidewalk on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan with a brick-sized gadget. Joel Engel, the head of AT&T-owned Bell Labs, answered the phone and heard Cooper, a Motorola engineer at the time, say, "I'm calling you on a cell phone, but a real cell phone, a personal, handheld, portable cell phone." Although the common consumer wouldn't have access to cell phones for another ten years, anyone passing Cooper on the street that day could have witnessed history being made. In the fifty years after that initial call, Cooper's large equipment has changed and been replaced by a variety of smaller, speedier phones that are now commonplace and are changing industries, culture, and the way we interact with one another and ourselves. While the scope and influence of mobile phones may have surprised some, Cooper claimed that it was inevitable that they would one day be seen as necessities for most of humanity. Image Credit: HPE Cooper, who is now 94, told CNN, "I was not surprised that everyone has a cell phone. "We used to say that you will one day be given a phone number when you were born. You would perish if you didn't answer the phone.

The proliferation of cell phones

Before that first conversation, Bell Laboratories, the renowned research division of AT&T that created the transistor and other inventions, was in a race with Motorola to develop a cell phone. Cooper noted, "They were the largest firm in the world, and we were a modest company in Chicago. They simply didn't consider us to be very important. He remembers that while Cooper was thrilled to call him, his adversary wasn't quite as thrilled to get the call. You could tell that I wasn't afraid to rub his nose in it. He treated me nicely, Cooper said CNN. Joel still doesn't recall that phone call, and I suppose I can't blame him. CNN was unable to get in touch with Engel. Following Cooper's initial call, he claimed that manufacturing problems and governmental regulations hampered the development of the phone's release to the general public. Cooper cites the Federal Communications Commission as an example, where he currently serves as an adviser, and how they struggled to determine how to divide up radio channels to maintain competition. A variant of that DynaTAC (Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage) phone wouldn't be available until ten years later, and it would cost a whopping $3,900. The phone, which resembled the one Gordon Gekko used in the film "Wall Street," was roughly a foot tall and weighed 2.5 pounds. Contrast that to the iPhone 14, which weighs 6 ounces and measures just under six inches, or to any of the $200-$300 Android low-cost devices.

"Seek[ing] to enhance human experience"

The contemporary cell phone didn't really take off until the 1990s, when it drastically decreased in size and improved in usability. According to a 2021 Pew Research Center research, 97% of Americans currently own a cell phone of some form. Image Credit: Yahoo Cooper launched businesses, went on speaking tours, made media appearances, and wrote a book about the transformative impact of the cell phone in the years following that initial call. But he may not always be in favour of the most recent technological developments. Too many engineers, according to Cooper, are preoccupied with what they refer to as technology, gadgets, and hardware, forgetting that the main goal of technology is to improve people's lives. People frequently forget this, so I have to remind them. We're working to make people's lives better. It is the fundamental purpose of technology. But, looking back on the last 50 years, Cooper mainly approves of the direction the phone has led us. He loves using his Apple Watch to measure his swimming activity and connect his hearing aids to his phone. He is an iPhone user himself (and previously a Samsung user). Cooper also stated that he thinks society as a whole will benefit from the progress of technology. Read More: SpaceX Starlink Terminals in Ukraine Supposedly Down Because of Money Issues "I'm a realist. I am aware that cellphones have drawbacks. There are others who become addicted to it. People are using their cellphones while crossing the street, said Cooper. "Overall, I believe that the development of the cell phone has improved humanity and will do so going forward."