The Big 3-0

On April 3, 1973, Motorola’s Communications Systems general manager Martin Cooper made the first call over a portable cellular phone (to no less than rival Joel Engel, head of research at AT&T’s Bell Labs). The call changed not only the future of telecommunications but also the way people interact in their daily lives. Cooper, now CEO of wireless solutions developer ArrayComm, reminisces about that historic call and talks about how, three decades on, the wireless world is far different from the one he envisioned.

What was the significance of that phone call 30 years ago, and how would the world be different if it had never been made?

We changed the way the world communicated. That demonstration showed personal portable communications was possible. We replaced the notion that a phone number or a phone call was attached a specific place. It gave freedom to people to go anywhere and still be in contact. That’s pretty significant.

How would mobile communications have evolved if it weren’t for that Motorola prototype?

If we hadn’t made that demo, the powers that be would have foisted car telephones on us. AT&T, being the only telephone company back then, went to the FCC and said, “We’ll provide all personal mobile communications--just give us 35 MHz of spectrum.” But AT&T wasn’t talking about personal communications; they were talking about car phones. We objected to that. We believed that a phone number should represent a person, not a person’s car. If we hadn’t demonstrated personal portability, people would have been tied to their cars just like they’re tied to their home or office.

What’s different about the wireless world today than what you imagined 30 years ago?

Thirty years ago, we could never imagine cell phones could be so inexpensive, to the point that carriers could just give them away. In 1983, when the first commercial phones came out, a phone would cost you $3500. But I honestly thought we’d have more carriers than we do today. That was one of our objectives--to create competition. While there may be six or seven carriers in some market, they’re all essentially offering the same service.

What will the wireless world be like 30 years from now?

There’s no question in my mind that there will be as many types of services as there are different types of people. Once wireless achieves the same reliability as wireline, you’ll see wired phones go away entirely. Even telephone numbers will eventually disappear. If a person only has one phone, there’s no reason to have different numbers to reach him at different places.