Who invented mobile phone?

Dr. Martin Cooper of Motorola is considered the inventor of mobile phone.

Dr. Martin Cooper [Image Source: www.bits.blogs.nytimes.com]

Martin Cooper was born on December 26, 1928 in Chicago to the parents of Arthur and Mary Cooper. After graduating from the Illinois Institute of Technology with his Masters and bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering in 1950 (Martin Cooper&Leard), he joined the navy for 4 years. He was fighting in World War II before Motorola offered him a job. As he worked at Motorola, he was inspired. Star Trek inspired him. On the show they used small, hand-held communication devices.

A portable device that would replace wired telecommunication system forced to work in this direction. And From 1972 he worked upon this. In 1973, he succeeded. Martin made first mobile call on April 3, 1973. 

Dr. Martin Cooper with the first built Mobile Phone

Weight of the phone was 2.5 pounds. It was 9 inches long and 5 inches in height. He nicknamed it "The Brick". It used to take more than 10 hours to charge and one could able to talk only 30 minutes. In front of reporters, he made first wireless telephonic call from handheld subscriber equipment to Dr. Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs.

However, In 1940s Motorola developed a backpacked two-way radio, the Walkie-Talkie and a large hand-held two-way radio for the US military. The same technology developed further and produced the mobile phone that we know today.

In 1946 USSR (Russia) successfully tested their version of a radio mobile phone mounted inside a car.

Where as The modern handheld cell phone era began in 1973 when Motorola invented the first cellular portable telephone to be commercialised, known as Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. On October 13, 1983, the pilot commercial cellular system of Illinois Bell began operating in Chicago. The second pilot system ran by ARTS in partnership with Motorola begins operation in Baltimore/Washington on December 16, 1983. And so on, By 1984, Washington, DC has two competing cellular providers. 

The Motorola StarTac was the first phone in the world with Vibrating alert function. It was unveiled in North America on January 3, 1996. StarTACs remained popular until the early 2000s.