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Old 21st Feb 2010, 3:11 pm   #1
60 oldjohn
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Default Who sold the first mobile phones?

I have been looking in the Argos catalogue for 1987 and no mention of mobile phones, And IIRC the brick phone was launched around 1984. Were they only available direct from the manufacturers? Thanks for looking. John.
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Old 21st Feb 2010, 3:40 pm   #2
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

There were specialist sellers, like in London there was places like London Car Telephones who were evolving from selling car telephones to the hand mobile range.

you probably would not have seen them in an Argos cat. because you could only have them on contract rental at the time, and your analogue phone could only be set up by this specialist phone company.
They would have started appearing in places like Argos probably at the same time as 'Pay as You Go' came along where you could set up your phone yourself without the need for a rental contract.

For some reason it all seem to take off in Jan 85, which may have been something to do with the fact that the old 405 television service had just closed down for good - maybe got more mast space?

I maybe wrong but If recall correctly some/all of the Motorola brick phones were made in England in factory somewhere around the very small town of Stotfold, Herts.
I think Motorola's brick phone and other portable phones had been around a long time previous to that, but they could not get them to work properly.Then some clever guys at Cable & Wireless.(later Vodaphone) invented the radio 'cell' broadcasting system and the rest was history.

Last edited by cheerfulcharlie; 21st Feb 2010 at 3:52 pm.
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Old 21st Feb 2010, 4:06 pm   #3
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

In the early 1980's I was at Marconi in Chelmsford in the aerial group and I can remember putting together a proposal for Racal Milicom for suitable aerials, I think based on 300MHz, for a cell structure proposal. I also remember telling Chris Gent the then boss of Racal Millicom at a Marconi do that I thought mobile phones would never take off because no one other than a business man would pay £1200-£2000 for a handset. The alternative system at the time was System 4 (175Mhz) which was run by Securicor (I think) and supplied and installed by Marconi Mobile.
Charlie is right, you bought your phone through a specialist companies on a contract basis. There was a huge market in companies that had big client lists. Marconi bought out one or two companies to strengthen their share of the market but I think they lost money in the end.

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Old 21st Feb 2010, 4:11 pm   #4
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

Quote:
Originally Posted by cheerfulcharlie View Post
Then some clever guys at Cable & Wireless.(later Vodaphone) invented the radio 'cell' broadcasting system and the rest was history.
I think you will find Vodafone grew out of military technology at Racal. It was called Racal / Vodafone before the 'phone business was spun off separately.

Quote:
In 1982 Racal Electronics plc's subsidiary Racal Strategic Radio Ltd. won one of two UK cellular telephone network licences; the other going to British Telecom[10][11] The network, known as Racal Vodafone was 80% owned by Racal, with Millicom and the Hambros Technology Trust owning 15% and 5% respectively. Vodafone was launched on 1 January 1985.[12] Racal Strategic Radio was renamed Racal Telecommunications Group Limited in 1985.[11] On 29 December 1986, Racal Electronics bought out the minority shareholders of Vodafone for GB£110 million.[13]
In September 1988, the company was again renamed Racal Telecom, and on 26 October 1988, Racal Electronics floated 20% of the company. The flotation valued Racal Telecom at GB£1.7 billion.[14] On 16 September 1991, Racal Telecom was demerged from Racal Electronics as Vodafone Group.[15]


REF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodafone
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Old 22nd Feb 2010, 9:12 am   #5
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

I did have one of those 'brick' mobile phones, it was absolutely useless and a complete waste of money. It was very unreliable.

My late father once told me that in our block of flats a certain gentlemen would go down to his car and make a phone call before being driven off. This would have been in the 1970's
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Old 22nd Feb 2010, 9:48 am   #6
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

When I worked at Thorn, in the late 1970's we went to a seminar on the (then about to be launched) new mobiles - brick-sized device with handle on top, attached to something that looked like a domestic phone handset.

Heavier than a brick, though; you wouldn't want to carry it very far.
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Old 22nd Feb 2010, 4:36 pm   #7
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Phelan View Post
brick-sized device with handle on top, attached to something that looked like a domestic phone handset.
Something like this, by any chance?
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

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Old 22nd Feb 2010, 4:42 pm   #8
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

I had a Nokia Mobira in 1987 with a 9 volt battery that looked like a stick of Locketts cough sweets. It worked very well and could just about be carried in a jacket pocket.

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Old 22nd Feb 2010, 11:46 pm   #9
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

Thank you for all your replies. I did not realise they could rented it makes sense due to the cost of buying them. Dave I have a couple of car phones made by Motorola, but they are both different to the one in your photo, In the past I have had them on my display of early electronics, I have had the smaller one's working with an O2 Sim card (the one Jim refers to) John.
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Old 23rd Feb 2010, 10:55 am   #10
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Moll View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Phelan View Post
brick-sized device with handle on top, attached to something that looked like a domestic phone handset.
Something like this, by any chance?
That's the one, Dave.
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Old 23rd Feb 2010, 2:52 pm   #11
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

My earliest memory is from working on construction sites and getting issued with a portable telephone unit in a briefcase. As far as I remember you picked up the handset pressed a calling button, whereupon an operator answered, you gave the landline number you required and you were allowed about 5 mins for your call. We were under strict instructions not to swear as the operators were listening and were prone to cut you off. I think they were based on radio telephone units but you had a standard telephone handset and they were quite neat units. I believe some were assembled by a small company in central Bristol. internal Battery life was limited, you could power it from your car but after a days use going home could be a problem. Chris
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Old 23rd Feb 2010, 2:56 pm   #12
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

Quote:
Originally Posted by chriswood1900 View Post
....... As far as I remember you picked up the handset pressed a calling button, whereupon an operator answered, you gave the landline number you required ......
This sounds like the London Radiophone service which predated cellular by quite a few years. A very expensive and exclusive product. I think you dialled 141 from a landline to get the Radiophone operator.

EDIT: Found this. It was 140, not 141.
http://www.storno.co.uk/radiophone.htm
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Old 24th Jul 2011, 7:48 pm   #13
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

I think you may find this interesting -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vix6T...eature=related

thread:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/f...p?topic=2001.0
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Old 3rd Sep 2011, 2:51 pm   #14
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

We had mobile phones around this part of the country in 1950's (just) !

See http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=36078

Most folk don't realise that the GPO's Radiophone service started in the South Lancashire/North Cheshire area in 1959 !

Last edited by Dave Moll; 3rd Sep 2011 at 3:45 pm. Reason: link fixed
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Old 3rd Sep 2011, 10:24 pm   #15
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

First saw a 'brick handbag' type - Racal Millicom, I think - at a radio rally demonstration in about 1981.
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Old 3rd Sep 2011, 10:34 pm   #16
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

I had a Motorola unit in 1988,you unplugged the handset from the "brick" and it plugged into the handsfree cradle in the car. The "brick" slid into a housing in the boot .

Mine worked very well in the car , but there was only about 30 minutes use from the battery when being carried.

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Old 3rd Sep 2011, 10:57 pm   #17
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

The first "REAL" call by a mobile phone in the UK was by Ernie Wise in London 01/01/1985 on the Vodafone network, 9 days prior to BT Cellnet. Vodafone was started by RACAL who got one of the two avalable licences.
Vodafone stands for "VOice DAta phone"
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Old 4th Sep 2011, 10:37 am   #18
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

Not exactly "for sale" but this seems to be the UK's first real mobile -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/tomorrowsworld/8018.shtml

And its not even British its a US Trimline attached to an RX/TX unit, Michael Rodd does his hip joint in on wearing it...
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Old 4th Sep 2011, 12:22 pm   #19
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

I had a Motorola brick in 1988. It was incredibly expensive - but then in comparison with today, so was everything else to do with new technology - but the cheapest option as all the other handsets were in 4 figures. I bought on a lease purchase deal - you could only get a phone with an airtime deal. I got it through a company in the same block as ours and there seemed to be huge amounts of money to be made - all the sales reps drove smart Beamers with personalised reg plates.

One relatively short call would send the battery flat so I always had a spare on charge. It was a bit like vintage radio accumulators. On receive it was okay for a few hours. It lasted well into the 90s. I bought an adapter to plug it into the car cigarette lighter and when it became the fashion to have your mobile on all the while - even when you were in the office - I ran it off a spare car battery.

Having a mobile saved me a heck of a lot of time and travelling when I was out. However it soon became apparent that you could never be out of contact which was the start of the curse of the mobile phone, email, text, et al.

Twenty odd years on I am only on my fifth handset. One new one was a result of having to go digital and another was a free upgrade that allowed me to use the internet (WAP). I think they thought it would make me spend more on calls/air-time - they were wrong!
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Old 4th Sep 2011, 1:11 pm   #20
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Default Re: who sold the first mobile phones?

The book 'Backroom Boys' has a very interesting chapter on how Vodaphone got the coverage of GSM UHF mobiles as good as it was, the other(s) only used computer simulations.

I still don't own a 'mobile', much to the distain of my boss.
 
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