
The origin of cell phones can be found way back when radios were invented, since cell phones are essentially radios that go two ways. What we consider to be cell phones today were created in the 1930’s, when the company Motorola started constructing portable radios to be installed in cars. They were considered to be radio receivers for personal use back then. Towards the end of the 50’s, transistor radios boomed in the American market, thereby making the general public able to afford portable radios. However, it was only about twenty years ago that policemen and specialized forces started using what we consider to be mobile phones in their vehicles.
Privately owned companies were able to form cell networks (read “How Cell Phones Work”) in the late 1960’s, once the Federal Trade Commission allowed such behavior. These cell formations used transmissions that required a low amount of power, and enabled radio frequencies to be used over and over again within a certain area. This allowed a huge amount of telephone calls to be made all at the same time and made widespread consumer usage of calls more feasible. Once digital technology was developed, this opened the area up to even further usage of the frequencies. When various companies began making more lightweight “cell phones” with their own batteries, the phones were no longer solely able to be used in cars. They could be taken anywhere and used at any time. These days, we now see cell phones not only as a means of communication in the original sense of the word “phone”, but as objects that we can use which connect us to the world around us by providing us with music, images, text, and more.