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We Could Have Had Cellphones Four Decades Earlier (reason.com)
_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."
We could all be using satellite phones now...but they're not commercially viable...capability does not equal widely applicable. Especially technological capacity in its infancy. We could theoretically all be travelling in electromagnetic floating cars...but we're not...it's technically feasible...but not practical or commercially viable at this point in time...so...even though Tesla demonstrated wireless electricity in the 1800's...we're just now coming into induction charging as a regular thing. We're still not powering every device in our house through one central electrical generator...it's all being worked on though folks...you just can't get it cheap now...
Sounds to me like it would have been a technology integrated into luxury automobiles. We already saw other tech like 12" phonographs in luxury automobiles, so it's not exactly a stretch to imagine such a thing being popular for businessmen in sufficiently lofty jobs where better communications would make for more decisions. On top of that automobiles have had generators or alternators since the nineteen-teens, when Cadillac adopted a Delco starter/generator unit, so something of a modern electrical system existed. I remember Dad's '40 Buick having a 6V generator, not the most sophisticated of devices, but it would have been enough to power a two-way radio like a cellular phone.
Early phones would have been huge, but as the usefulness was demonstrated companies would have sought to make them smaller. They might still have essentially remained carphones until the integrated-circuit era, but that doesn't mean that no one would have had them.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Well, it WAS integrated into luxury automobiles. Car phone services were definitely around from the late 1940s on, but coverage areas were severely limited and costs were astronomical. I first remember realizing this watching the original Sabrina movie with Humphrey Bogart, and Bogie makes a call from his car.. In a 1954 movie. I was a bit shocked, but I looked them up, and sure enough phones like that were around back then. However, as TFA notes, these weren't CELLULAR phones, just mobile phones. Cellular tech was actually what allowed enlarged networks and cheaper prices because more calls could be routed through networks. Cellular was what transformed a luxury good into a more common one.
First handheld cell phone from Motorola in 1973 was quite big, and they said it was a huge research and manufacturing effort to squeeze components down to that size with 70s technology.
The article tells us that the first "cellular" call (the author's opinion seems to be that this was the only contributory technology required to make "cellphones" as we know them today) was made in 1973. So 4 decades earlier would have meant starting celular technology in the early 1930's.
But to claim we could have had "cellphones" at any particular point in time implies all the infrastructure that goes with them: small size, portability, low cost, cell-towers, call routing computers, high capacity batteries. Simply saying that technical feasibility is the same as being able to develop a commercial product is naive.
The ancient Babylonians used oil, does that mean thay should have developed the internal combustion engine?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons