Martin Cooper -
Inventor Of The
Cellphone
Dr. Martin
Cooper, a former
general manager
for the systems
division at
Motorola, is
considered the
inventor of the
first portable
handset and the
first person to
make a call on a
portable cell
phone in April
1973. The first
call he made was
to his rival,
Joel Engel, Bell
Labs head of
research.
AT&T's research
arm, Bell
Laboratories,
introduced the
idea of cellular
communications
in 1947. But
Motorola and
Bell Labs in the
sixties and
early seventies
were in a race
to incorporate
the technology
into portable
devices.
Cooper, now 70,
wanted people to
be able to carry
their phones
with them
anywhere.
While he was a
project manager
at Motorola in
1973, Cooper set
up a base
station in New
York with the
first working
prototype of a
cellular
telephone, the
Motorola
Dyna-Tac. After
some initial
testing in
Washington for
the F.C.C., Mr.
Cooper and
Motorola took
the phone
technology to
New York to show
the public.
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The First Cellphone (1973)
Name: Motorola Dyna-Tac
Size: 9 x 5 x 1.75 inches
Weight: 2.5 pounds
Display: None
Number of Circuit Boards: 30
Talk time: 35 minutes
Recharge Time: 10 hours
Features: Talk, listen, dial |
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In 1973, when
the company
installed the
base station to
handle the first
public
demonstration of
a phone call
over the
cellular
network,
Motorola was
trying to
persuade the
Federal
Communications
Commission to
allocate
frequency space
to private
companies for
use in the
emerging
technology of
cellular
communications.
After some
initial testing
in Washington
for the F.C.C.,
Mr. Cooper and
Motorola took
the phone
technology to
New York to show
the public.
On April 3,
1973, standing
on a street near
the Manhattan
Hilton, Mr.
Cooper decided
to attempt a
private call
before going to
a press
conference
upstairs in the
hotel. He picked
up the 2-pound
Motorola handset
called the
Dyna-Tac and
pushed the "off
hook" button.
The phone came
alive,
connecting Mr.
Cooper with the
base station on
the roof of the
Burlington
Consolidated
Tower (now the
Alliance Capital
Building) and
into the
land-line
system. To the
bewilderment of
some passers-by,
he dialed the
number and held
the phone to his
ear.
Who is he?
Cooper grew up
in Chicago and
earned a degree
in electrical
engineering at
the Illinois
Institute of
Technology.
After four years
in the navy
serving on
destroyers and a
submarine, he
worked for a
year at a
telecommunications
company.
Hired by
Motorola in
1954, Mr. Cooper
worked on
developing
portable
products,
including the
first portable
handheld police
radios, made for
the Chicago
police
department in
1967. He then
led Motorola's
cellular
research.
Martin Cooper
Today
Martin Cooper's
role in
conceiving and
developing the
first portable
cellular phone
directly
impacted his
choice to found
and lead
ArrayComm, a
wireless
technology and
systems company
founded in 1992.
ArrayComm's core
adaptive antenna
technology
increases the
capacity and
coverage of any
cellular system,
while
significantly
lowering costs
and making
speech more
reliable. This
technology
addresses what
Cooper calls
"the unfulfilled
promise" of
cellular, which
should be, but
still isn't as
reliable or
affordable as
wired telephony.
ArrayComm has
also used its
adaptive antenna
technology to
make the
Internet
"personal" by
creating the i-BURST
Personal
Broadband
System, which
delivers
high-speed,
mobile Internet
access that
consumers can
afford.
"It's very
exciting to be
part of a
movement toward
making broadband
available to
people with the
same freedom to
be anywhere that
they have for
voice
communications
today," said
Martin Cooper.
"People rely
heavily on the
Internet for
their work,
entertainment
and
communication,
but they need to
be unleashed. We
will look back
at 2003 as the
beginning of the
era when the
Internet became
truly untethered." |
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