The Innovation of Cell Phones

By Hilda Rubio

The innovation of the cell phone began in 1900 when an inventor named Reginald Fessenden created the first human voice transmission using radio waves. In 1947, Lars Magnus invented car phones and engineer William Rae Young worked on radio towers for telephone companies. They all started to compete.

American engineer Martin Cooper was put in charge of a project to invent the cell phone, and he believed that it should be portable, not plugged into a car. Cooper invented the first handheld wireless cell phone in 1973, which allowed people to talk for only 35 minutes before the battery ran out. In 1983, they made their invention available to the public at a cost of $3,995, and it became a huge success. However, as time went on, companies began building wireless phones that were smaller, lighter, and had better digital service. This made personal cell phones more affordable and led to the cell phone revolution in the 90s. In 1994, IBM’s Simon was released as the first smartphone with a touchscreen and apps. Ever since then, technology keeps getting better.

How did people communicate before the invention of cell phones? People used to visit public telephone booths to talk to others. As time passed, the technology evolved and car phones were invented. In the 1960s, they were huge, wired devices that were in place under the dashboard of a car. By the 1980s, people could carry their car phones in a case. They were small and portable devices that were easily plugged into a car.

After car phones, the innovation of cell phones were invented. At first people only dreamed of carrying a telephone around with them. It really was just in the form of a walkie-talkie. The mobile phone was really an innovative dream for them. Innovators added signals to the microphone inside the cell to capture a person’s voice and convert it into electrical signals and those signals got converted into binary codes of 0 and 1. They are then packed into the form of radio waves. Radio waves were transmitted with the help of an antenna, but inventors learned that the antenna wasn’t powerful enough to send them, so they made a cell tower which means that people can send and receive signals. There is also something called a mobile switching center which helps cell phones whenever there’s a distraction. Mobile switching has information stored into it. It also has a sim card holder for whenever a person moves with their cell phone.

Cell phones now let people talk whenever they want to. No matter how far away people are, cell phones allow them to talk to each other. Cells today let people send emails and texts whenever they want. People can also watch YouTube or shows and movies and listen to music and FaceTime each other. They made cell phones more fun to use which made people want to get them. There are many different cell phones now and people can choose what phone they want.

Cell phones used to be only used for phone calls back in the day and people could only talk on it for 35 minutes until the battery died. Now people can use it whenever they want and people can be on call with another person however long they want. Now you can do many different things with your cell phone. Cell phones are now helpful.

Cell phones have changed the way people communicate and phones help the way we live now. The innovation of cell phones made a big difference to the world. What would people do without their cell phones? Thanks to these inventions by innovators, no one needs to find out. The world was changed in so many ways through cell phones.

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SCSC Writing Contest Anthology 2022–23 Copyright © by Original Authors. All Rights Reserved.

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