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We Could Have Had Cellphones Four Decades Earlier (reason.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the woulda-coulda-shoulda dept.

_Sharp'r_ writes: Professor Thomas Hazlett of Clemson University analyzed the history of wireless spectrum and concluded the technology was known and available for cellphones in the 40s, but there was no spectrum available. Based on assumptions cellphones would always be luxury goods without mass appeal, significant spectrum for divisible cellular networks wasn't legally usable until the early 80s. Instead, the unused spectrum was reserved for the future expansion of broadcast TV to channels 70-83. Here's an excerpt from the report: "When AT&T wanted to start developing cellular in 1947, the FCC rejected the idea, believing that spectrum could be best used by other services that were not 'in the nature of convenience or luxury.' This view -- that this would be a niche service for a tiny user base -- persisted well into the 1980s. 'Land mobile,' the generic category that covered cellular, was far down on the FCC's list of priorities. In 1949, it was assigned just 4.7 percent of the spectrum in the relevant range. Broadcast TV was allotted 59.2 percent, and government uses got one-quarter."

6 of 263 comments (clear)

  1. It would have been for an elite by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Without modern miniaturization, spread-spectrum, and modern data compression, it would have been for an elite. We are lucky it wasn't rolled out in the 40's because it would have been a nickel-plated vacuum tube thing, and allocated to high-payers before the technology to allocate it widely existed.

    1. Re:It would have been for an elite by makomk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      IMTS isn't the same as MTS. Also, the reason why MTS was so expensive and rare is because in the 1940s the technology simply wasn't there to run such a system without hugely expensive equipment weighing 80 pounds. Reason's argument that it's the Government's fault for not allocating the spectrum just doesn't fly; the UHF frequencies they're talking about are, if anything, harder to operate on than the VHF frequencies used by MTS. Similarly, the technology to do handoff between cells and automatic frequency selection and dialling didn't exist yet either. Both MTS and IMTS were actually right at the bleeding edge of what was possible when they were introduced - bear in mind that IMTS predated the availability of ICs and MTS that of transistors, while cellular handsets were complex enough to need microprocessors.

      It's important to remember that Reason magazine has an ideological opposition to government regulation and indeed government in general that drives a lot of their reporting.

    2. Re:It would have been for an elite by Ender_Stonebender · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm pretty sure that both of those things are necessary (and neither of them, separately, is sufficient) in order to transform the idea of a "car phone" into what we think of as "mobile phones" today. Transistors allowed us to get to pocket-sized, battery-powered devices; cellular allowed us to get more calls into a given spectrum, so more than a dozen people could be using their mobile phones at the same time in the same city.

      --
      Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
  2. Spectrum is only one of the obstacles by Mosquito+Bites · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Many kinds of technology were involved into making the cell phone - from hardware to software - and most were simply not matured enough during the 1940's

  3. Ummm....they did exist since the late 1940's. by furry_wookie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The were called "radio phones/car phones". They were in use since the late 1940's and were quite popular in the 60s, 70s, and through the early 80s and often found in Limousines etc, before cell phones.

    This author does not really know what they are talking about.

    --
    -- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
  4. No shit by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Particularly since cellphones as they actually were/are, meaning phones that work with individuals radio "cells" and move between them need computers to work. They don't have to be amazing computers, but they need some computer logic to handle dealing with dynamic frequency assignment and handoff between towers.

    That one piece of a technology, even an important piece, existed at a given time doesn't mean the tech could happen. Many devices require a confluence of a number of technologies before they can happen.

    Smartphones are an example. They aren't particularly a novel idea, we've seen shit like them in sci fi for a long time. However to actually be a thing on the market we needed a lot of shit:

    --Processors had to get fast enough at a small enough size
    --Displays had to get small, light, and low energy
    --Batteries had to get sufficient energy density
    --Silicon based storage had to evolve to usable levels
    --We needed wireless digital communication
    --We needed the Internet (or something like it to have something worth connection to)

    Without any one of those things, you don't have a workable smartphone. That they started to rise to prominence when they did isn't some amazing stroke of genius or luck, it was because the various technologies had reached the needed point.