Mobile Phone At 40: Read The Press Release Announcing The Birth Of Cell Phones

FOUND: Read The 1973 Press Release On The Birth Of Mobile Phones

It was 40 years ago today that the first public mobile phone call on a handheld device was made by Motorola employee Martin Cooper.

He made the early call using a DynaTAC phone, which now looks like a relic of a bygone age.

But the press release sent out to mark the achievement - rightly - knew different.

And while we are often deluged by press releases with over-emphatic language, it's a neat reminder that sometimes the hype is justified after all.

The press release hails the invention as:

"A hand-held, completely portable telephone which will allow its user to place or receive telephone calls from virtually anywhere in a metro area."

Arguing that the phone would be available to the public by 1976, and the device eventually released cost $3,995 and weighed two pounds - taking 10 hours to recharge for each 30 minute call.

In the press release Motorola VP John F Mitchell said that the DYNA TAC system would make it "possible to make telephone calls while riding in a taxi, walking down the city's streets, sitting in a restaurant or anywhere else a radio signal can reach."

The phone "operates as simply as a conventional telephone" the release states.

"We expect there'll be heavy usage by a widely diverse group of people - businessmen, journalists, doctors, housewives, virtually anyone who needs or wants telephone communications," Cooper said.

And so it proved.

Close

What's Hot