I started working for what's the lottery, AT&T, and February 1963. I started working on Electro mechanical systems switching systems, that is. I remember working on a number 5 crossbar, at the 1964 65 World's Fair, in Corona, New York. I attended my first number one ESS School in 1965, at Madison Avenue New York. I worked on number one ESS, that stands for electronic switching system, for several years, then learned about ETS, electronic translator systems, that was the controlling systems for the, T1 carrier systems, at that time. Then went to school for tsps, Traffic Service position systems. That was the first electronic telephone operators switching system. Then went to school for, number f o u r, ESS, first digital electronic switching system, in Rego Park, Queens New York. Worked on several of those systems throughout New York metropolitan area as well as Upstate New York and Rochester for Rochester Communications. Then when to school for number five ESS, first electronic fiber optic switching system, and at the same time I was a member of the New York Tech Center in Manhattan, giving support wherever they needed, over the phone or I would fly, to whatever area had a problem. I'm retired from that position, due to Major complications of a spine surgery, 18 and 1/2 hours of surgery, approximately 13 to 14 days later on additional 5 and 1/2 hours of surgery, due to a major staph infection in my spine. I was given my last rights, and became disabled and unable to continue my employment with AT&T. I have 36 years employment. Today is August 28th 2022. Thank you for this post it brought back, great memories for me. God bless all of the former employees of AT&T in Western Electric, that are no longer with us. And God bless all of us who are still fortunate to be on this side of the lawn.
@@Mrcaffinebean Ah, so true. I was working at Western Electric in Pennsylvania in the 70s & 80s. A cell tower was installed outside the plant around 1980. The Bell System breakup was in 1984. The technology took off at other manufacturers, but AT&T did the research and laid the groundwork.
@@Mrcaffinebean you might wanna look up why AT&T was broken up... they took their government granted monopoly for granted and let the largess get in the way and started ripping people off and squelching innovation from others. They *had* to be broken up. Otherwise we’d all still be using these AMPS phones, and paying out the ass for long distance, and renting phones from the telephone company and paying through the nose for more than one phone and all the other services that are included today.
My dad had one of these phones in his company car. Before this, during most of the 1970s, he was using what was called "autopatch" which was basically HAM radio, with an operator at the other end connecting the radio with the land line. He'd queue up the operator, give her the phone number number, and then she'd dial it for him.
That's not even remotely what is known as autopatch. Using autopatch does not require the use of a third party. The radio has a tone pad on it like a touch tone dial that sends tones to a repeater patching it into the PTSN. When that is accomplished a dial tone is returned to the Amateur Radio operator and they enter the digits for the phone they are calling.
When that first cell phone network went on the air, the phrase "letting the Genie out of the bottle..." was never more apt! That literally would influence EVERYTHING in how we lived our daily lives!
When cellphones first came out, at least in Eastern Washington State, they cost a lot to make a call. I think I it was in 1989 (my first cellphone that now looks like some the Flintstones era) was 79 cents per minute. I remember the brick style cellphones and how I rarely misplaced mine because they were too big to lose, unlike the smartphone I have today that I’m always losing in my apartment. There’s something to be said for the brick. 😁
I got my first cell phone in 1988 when I was a sales rep. I remember the sales manager telling us to try and keep the monthly bills to $600. Of course they were generally close to $1000 and for all that money we had a lot of busy times and dropped calls. It was still better than trying to find a nasty public phone.
MY LATE DAD HAD ONE OF THESE THINGS EXPENSIVE WOULDNT WORK TODAY WITH THAT 5G KRAP I GOT ATT NOW AND THEY RAISED THE RATES 35 CENTS A CALL 30 CENTS TEXT TOO ADDS UP
I used to work for AT&T Wireless before the merger with Cingular. Before the merger, it was probably the best job I ever had. I loved it. We got paid well, got vacation time, bonuses, and the stress levels were reasonable (it was in a call center). Post merger...it became hell. I HATED it so much. We lost all our bonuses, the call volume skyrocketed to the point where we ALWAYS had customers in a queue (previously, we'd actually have a minute or two between calls). It got so stressful that people started leaving in droves. Our call center had probably about 1000 people. At least half left within the first year after the merger. These were people who'd been with AT&T for several years. It was one of those many times a merger made a truly negative impact on the business. This was back in 2004 / 2005. Given how bad the customer service has gotten, I think this change is still felt today. The business fundamentally changed and customers have been suffering through it ever since.
It seems weird to me to see people in 1979 saying, "I can't live without my phone!" Pretty cool to think cellular technology did exist back then. Also those early 3D CGI animations they were using at 7:53 were pretty neat.
In several episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies, you could see rich people talking on phones in their limos and cars. It's interesting how old the technology actually is.
Yes and on the show Cannon in the early 70's William Conrad had a mobile telephone. They had the phone ringer hooked up to the car horn so if you were away from the car it would beep the horn to alert you the phone was ringing.
I believe it goes back to at least the late 1940's radiotelephone service..it was an FM system..i got to talk on my uncles in the mid-1970's you had to turn the car off (side note the transciver sucked battery power so your car battery would go dead if you talked too long ..other option was to run the car and put up with the static) to reduce the static and it took 5 minutes for the radiotelephone operator to complete the call..the sound quality was very staticy but i could understand what my mom was telling me over the phone in the car exciting stuff at the time...and if i remember it was EXTREMELY expensive to make calls..
Do you remember the episode where Jethro put a phone into the truck? He said "Watch, Uncle Jed! I drive down to the front gate and call you! " He takes off, and Jed sees a big roll of phone cord unraveling beside him. He says, "I wonder if that boy's measured out enough cable. " Tye cord completely runs out and pulls a phone socket right out of the wall. Jed says, "Nope, I guess not. " 😆
The guy with the beige caddy and puffy suit looks a bit like he'd be on the phone "Hey Tony, Im almost out of stock here" 'OK 'Mayun you call me tomorrow, and bring the f...money wit yu, dis time, O.K.?''
40 years later, people literally can't live without their mobile phones. It's a wonderful technology that has changed the culture of being human. I almost wish they never invented this. I said ALMOST. What I really wish is that people refrain from losing their humanity to technology!
I had my first cellular telephone in 1992. At the time I lived in Tarpon Springs area of Florida, and I was taking a trip over to the east coast to meet some friends, in my car, there were three friends driving with me. We got a bit lost and had to call for directions, guess what I had my own cell phone. My friends in the car were unaware of it, they were in total or when I made a phone call right for my car, to get the proper directions. I still remember that day, this clip brings back great memories , thank you for the Post. Today is August 28th 2022.
Its hard to believe how much and how far technology has come in 37 years in cellular phones and in cellular service as well, back in the day if you had one of these phones you were the talk of the town and people were awed by the technology. It was $4,000 dollars for a phone then and now its $1,000 dollars or less for a smartphone and there are soo many different carriers, not too mention much better reception and area coverage.
$1000 for a smartphone? I'm sure you can pay that much if you really want to. On the other hand, you can get a cheap one for under $100 (without a contract or shit like that, just the phone).
I was in the automobile towing and recovery business on the Alabama Gulf Coast from 1980-1992. I knew the area Motorola rep, and he kept me up to speed on the latest radio/telephone gear. And once I got far enough ahead, I ordered a new 800mHz trunked radio system, with portables and fixed Mobile units. In addition to the sweet radio setup, they also had telephone patching ability, a huge plus in that business. Along came 1986, and my Motorola guy tells me cellular service will soon be available in my city. I decided to order my first cell phone in October 1986, and it was built and later delivered in April 1987. Phone, accessories and installation cost nearly $3000. For service I went with the Non wireline carrier, with rates of 45 cents per minute peak, from 6 am to 6pm, and 10 cents per minute off peak times. By today's standards, it was crap, but we thought we were competing with the Jetsons! I'd give about anything to be back in those simpler days right now. 2019 kinda sux!
Lots of folks had pagers back then. In the 1970s, as I remember, only voice pagers were available, and they were NOT popular. People who needed them relied on them but hated them. You never knew when you were going to hear a loud buzzer that sounded like your answer was NOT what the survey said on 'Family Feud', followed by the crackling voice of somebody's receptionist who reached your number in error yelling at you that your mom called and the doctor said it's highly contagious and needs you to go straight to the ER. What fun those things were!
My uncle owned a limo company in Chicago, it was a money laundering operation for the mob.. he bought a cellular phone right then they came out in 1983 and was one of the first people I ever knew who used their cellular phone as their main phone number for all purposes. I didn't get to that point until about 1998!
You have to love how you could basically only use your phone while driving back then because it ran off the car battery. Now if you use your phone while driving you get fined or go to jail. I wonder how many accidents happened due to the old mobile phones
Probably a lot. They weren’t being tracked back then. People are just gonna keep dying because of using cell phone while driving. Humans are our own worst enemy.
they did.. and the phones got blamed for accidents back then like they do now.. somewhere in the late 80s a couple companies started to release lower cost bag phones and car-mounted phones.. service prices around 1990 began to come down so more and more people got phones.. but the costs were still hgih enough that most people didnt just yack.. a cell phone was a ..call up, hang up pretty quick endeavor with daytime rates still in the 30-50 cents a minute range.. somewhere in 93/94 a couple companies started offering bigger buckets of minutes and unlimited nights / weekends... thats when people began to yack.. Motorola releasing 'Nextel' with unlimited 2 way radio between any phone in the mid 90s really started the drop in cell costs and by the late 90s unlimited plans were popping up everywhere as well as sub $100 phones that didnt way a ton... this also began the era of Texting in ernest...
having went through the training to be a Wireless support tech (ffs telemarketing job) I can tell you this. there whole motto is "make a sell or be written up" each call. oh if you call in crying or trying to deactivate a service of some one who's died, nope, got to make that sale to them, because they get so many sales from widows and other people calling in for just that to deactivate a service of a dead person. I quit a day after I took my first call for this, since I refused to make a sale to a widow, att is the deathstar
The AT&T that developed this got broke up in 1984. The US government thought it was a good idea to break them up. A democrat elected judge approved it.
1:55 Actually the portable phones that he's talking about actually are the car phones not the big giant brick phones, they didn't come out until a little bit later.
I had an analog cellphone before they went to digital... I could here the dopler shift as I went from cell to cell. Now with digital, it sounds much better...
Up until all of the AMPS towers were shut down a few years ago I could monitor analog phone calls on a old modified police scanner. If they had enhanced security enabled on their phone it would hope frequencies every so often, but I could find them again pretty quickly. I heard some crazy stuff over the year (drug deals, arguments). Yes I do know it was illegal. BTW cross talk and static were a big issue with AMPS and of course security.
Yep those were the times when can use my modified Kenwood HF transceiver to make calls even yes other people could hear that were listen to that repeater tower but didn’t care at the time as did the same and then the hours of enjoyment hearing the crazy stuff at times like prostitution, arguments and of course the common drug deals going on? Then my good old realistic pro scanner that was great for listening to pretty much everything had my antenna could receive back then. Still have now p25 Phase 2 TDMA Uniden scanners which are great especially for taking to air shows and listening to security and police but nothing like the old days.
when i was a teen in the mid 80s, i used to monitor the cell tower that went up near my house.. used a VCR that had the fine tuner UHF dials on it.. you could tune in the cellular channels and listen to calls.. it was great entertainment back then...
@@eldoradoboy did the VCR go up to channel 83? Older TVs went up to channel 83 which included the cellular frequencies in the 800 MHz band. The FCC took away channels 70 to 83 and reallocated them for cellular and trunk radio. So yeah TVs and VCRs made before 1983 could pick up cellular phone calls.
Yes you are. But it must be hands-free. In my car, most of the phone interface is muted above 5mph. (dialpad, contacts, etc.) Voice command works pretty well these days. There are buttons on the wheel to answer and hangup.
My first cell phone was in 1986 the bag phone cost $1000 Could call my customers from a small tug boat instead of using a marine operator ore rushing back to the dock to use the land line phone !!!
Excellent video. I collect AMPS mobile phones, and have one of the earliest model AMPS car phones made by EF Johnson in 1984. Still powers up & works fine too. Yes, it all started on 13 October 1983 in Chicago.
I remember the first cellphone I got back in 1989. It was an extremely large battery that came with a wide strap to carry it and it went around the head and would hang off of the side. The receiver would sit securely on the large batter. Eventually I traded in the cellphone for something that looked like a walky talky but it was actually a phone (the best way to describe it) but when I’d call someone I’d push a button in on the side (just like a walky talky) to talk, but the person I called couldn’t talk at the same time, and while waiting for the other person to talk there would be dead salience. Everyone could hear what was being said because the receiver wasn’t like a phone, like the first cellphone I had. It was really cool.
99% successful mobile calls in 1979? I don't think so. I was lucky to get 80% successful mobile calls in 1998. Today, it's about 98% successful connections.
Cell came out in Chicago in '83. I saw that, and it had my name all over it! The first transportables came out in about '85. I saw the first 2, the Mitsubishi 555 and the NEC. I had to have one! ALL 4000 DOLLARS OF IT! I passed the credit ap at the electronics trade show in Chicago, and had to wait for it to get imported! I bought the 555, the choice being of beauty, of all things! My serial number was something like 000047! One of the first off the production line, so new were they!32 cents a minute, analog cellophane crackle noise included! I was the cats-ass-hole with that thing, buddy!!!! No one had really seen them yet, and to walk around talking on the telephone was a crowd-starter!!! I never looked back! One of the best things I ever did! No more running to pay phones! I think I actually made money with it, because I had the edge on everyone else! I found a brand-new one on Stink-bay 4 months ago, still in the boxes! Ah, memories!!!!! (that's all I got-it doesn't work any more of course!!)
Don't touch my bag phone! I actually had that thing hooked up with AT&T up until 2011 or so when they finally killed off the AMPS service altogether! These digital phones suck!
I was too young in the early 80's (like 10 yrs old....) but being that I'm pretty rural I remember it still being a "WOW!!" thing in the 90's when it first became available here. It was a Motorola bag phone. It had an antenna. it was analog. I still think that analog phones would work better in this area. Less secure but not enough towers! I remember it was 45 minutes a month. I don't remember the price but I'm thinking maybe $30 - $40 per month?? They may have been low-tech by today's standards but at least the damn things worked in rural areas! Yes I know this post is 2+ years old but something I saw on TV got me on here looking for the "first cell phone call".
I know it's a stupid question but I can't seem to ask it right for Google to get me answers so maybe you can help me. How did these old cell phones work without a sim card? What was there to prevent anyone from buying just the phone and just connecting to the network without paying the comm provider?
Not only was AT&T was involved with developing cellular so was Motorola who developed the transceiver section as well as OKI Data was instrumental in developing the computer section of the phone. Was one of the first 1000 technicians certified by Motorola to repair their products. Lets not forget that even today, a cellular phone is nothing but a full duplex radio transceiver controlled by a microcomputer.
I worked for ATT Wireless during the transition from analog to digital cell..we had to carry 2 phones constantly ...the digital cell connection sound quality was terrible ...of course only a few towers had been converted so we used the analog cell for reliably to make the call....
OKI was huge in the telecom industry back then.. they came out with one of the first Digital PBX phone systems.. it never really gained market in the USA but it was big in japan.. so to hear OKI was instrumental in cell development isnt a surprise
He says "only" 10 towers, but the system that AMPS replaced (IMTS) had only one radio base, located at 2 S. Canal St. Going from one to ten is an increase of an order of magnitude! By the time AMPS was shut down, it had a lot more locations. Over the years, I watched the antennas on the original towers get lowered to raise their radio horizon, so as to not interfere with the new cell sites.
6:02 "AMPS can save me 3 or 4 hours in my day, no more running around looking for a phone it's right there with me." Yeah, cell phones have saved me soo much time in my day.
I'd love to see what these old school 1G cell towers looked like back then. Can't find pictures anywhere online. We see one at 7:47, but I can't tell if it's huge or small lol
It's entirely possible the car didn't have seatbelts. (they weren't required by any laws, and were an optional extra in many cars. I remember my dad's GTO they were an add-on option, and lap belt only.)
Thanks for the detailed explanation - now that this is a dead technology I have a question. I remember one day my dad was livid - as he got back from the south end and his phone wasn't working (the Dyna TAC 550 flip phone). Apparently someone scanned the AMPS channel, got the ESN and MEID (Phone Number), was able to decode it some how and programmed it onto another phone. They were on the phone with Russia for the whole day, so when my dad got the bill it was $10,000... naturally he was quite unhappy. He didn't have to pay as they found the 2 ESNs in 2 different cells was obviously cloned... but the last thing he wanted to do is fork $500 for a new phone (ESN was OTP ROM at that time on the motorola - jackals already had it) so he changed his number. Anyways, can they intercept this when he was already on a call driving into a new cell (locking that frequency and decoding), or only when he made the call in the first place?
jb0177 Back when there were only a handful of people with phones in their cars. They weren't any better in 1977 at driving while talking on the phone than we are in 2015. There were just fewer people doing it less often.
today's teens assume what's on the phone is more worth looking at than... well, pretty much everything in life, much less the car in front of them. While we seemed to be able to drive and chew gum at the same time
Gee, he demonstrates the AT&T system using a Motorola phone. And, the first cellular call was made by Motorola and the call was from New York to Bell Labs and the message was on the order of We Won the Race.
I think it would be pretty neat to work on AT&T's archive team. I love the history of technology.
Same here
@@QUIZFILTER
Way before I was born 🥰 born may 3 1990 I'm age 31
I have to say I agree, it’s pleasing watching humans adapt technology in previous worlds.
@@unknownwolf4046 lol you’re younger than the Simpsons.
I started working for what's the lottery, AT&T, and February 1963. I started working on Electro mechanical systems switching systems, that is. I remember working on a number 5 crossbar, at the 1964 65 World's Fair, in Corona, New York. I attended my first number one ESS School in 1965, at Madison Avenue New York. I worked on number one ESS, that stands for electronic switching system, for several years, then learned about ETS, electronic translator systems, that was the controlling systems for the, T1 carrier systems, at that time. Then went to school for tsps, Traffic Service position systems. That was the first electronic telephone operators switching system. Then went to school for, number f o u r, ESS, first digital electronic switching system, in Rego Park, Queens New York. Worked on several of those systems throughout New York metropolitan area as well as Upstate New York and Rochester for Rochester Communications. Then when to school for number five ESS, first electronic fiber optic switching system, and at the same time I was a member of the New York Tech Center in Manhattan, giving support wherever they needed, over the phone or I would fly, to whatever area had a problem. I'm retired from that position, due to Major complications of a spine surgery, 18 and 1/2 hours of surgery, approximately 13 to 14 days later on additional 5 and 1/2 hours of surgery, due to a major staph infection in my spine. I was given my last rights, and became disabled and unable to continue my employment with AT&T. I have 36 years employment. Today is August 28th 2022. Thank you for this post it brought back, great memories for me. God bless all of the former employees of AT&T in Western Electric, that are no longer with us. And God bless all of us who are still fortunate to be on this side of the lawn.
After watching this video, I think there's been more progress made in eye wear and lapels since 1978 than cell phone technology.
Yes, no more neckties either.
drott150 that’s what happens when you break up the companies doing the development work.
@@Mrcaffinebean Ah, so true. I was working at Western Electric in Pennsylvania in the 70s & 80s. A cell tower was installed outside the plant around 1980. The Bell System breakup was in 1984. The technology took off at other manufacturers, but AT&T did the research and laid the groundwork.
are you saying people were shit then and shit now?
@@Mrcaffinebean you might wanna look up why AT&T was broken up... they took their government granted monopoly for granted and let the largess get in the way and started ripping people off and squelching innovation from others. They *had* to be broken up. Otherwise we’d all still be using these AMPS phones, and paying out the ass for long distance, and renting phones from the telephone company and paying through the nose for more than one phone and all the other services that are included today.
"The old system was like talking through an overseas telephone."
I must still be on the old system! 😂
Now everyone has a "car phone. We just can't use it in the car
good one!🤣🤣🤣
Lessons have been learnt :)
Hands free kits have been invented since like speaker phone and diologe recognition for ancer or reject, so you're kind of right
@@TheRicheg what is this magic you speak of?
@@Nib_Nob-t7x 😂😂
My dad had one of these phones in his company car. Before this, during most of the 1970s, he was using what was called "autopatch" which was basically HAM radio, with an operator at the other end connecting the radio with the land line. He'd queue up the operator, give her the phone number number, and then she'd dial it for him.
That's not even remotely what is known as autopatch. Using autopatch does not require the use of a third party. The radio has a tone pad on it like a touch tone dial that sends tones to a repeater patching it into the PTSN. When that is accomplished a dial tone is returned to the Amateur Radio operator and they enter the digits for the phone they are calling.
I just now learned why they're called "cell phones". Never gave it a thought before this.
Ryan Hanselman in germany a cellphone is called handy
In Poland cell phones are called cell phones. 😉
When that first cell phone network went on the air, the phrase "letting the Genie out of the bottle..." was never more apt! That literally would influence EVERYTHING in how we lived our daily lives!
When cellphones first came out, at least in Eastern Washington State, they cost a lot to make a call. I think I it was in 1989 (my first cellphone that now looks like some the Flintstones era) was 79 cents per minute. I remember the brick style cellphones and how I rarely misplaced mine because they were too big to lose, unlike the smartphone I have today that I’m always losing in my apartment. There’s something to be said for the brick. 😁
Bella Bella did you ever consider gluing your cellphone to a brick?
This is gold
$50 a minute, a doubt they were this calm and cool. "Damnit Janet, just tell me what is on the schedule!"
Doctor X will build a creature!
Let's do a reinterview of those happy test subjects after robo-call technology has been fully developed.
I got my first cell phone in 1988 when I was a sales rep. I remember the sales manager telling us to try and keep the monthly bills to $600. Of course they were generally close to $1000 and for all that money we had a lot of busy times and dropped calls. It was still better than trying to find a nasty public phone.
MY LATE DAD HAD ONE OF THESE THINGS
EXPENSIVE
WOULDNT WORK TODAY WITH THAT 5G KRAP
I GOT ATT NOW AND THEY RAISED THE RATES 35 CENTS A CALL
30 CENTS TEXT TOO
ADDS UP
I used to work for AT&T Wireless before the merger with Cingular. Before the merger, it was probably the best job I ever had. I loved it. We got paid well, got vacation time, bonuses, and the stress levels were reasonable (it was in a call center). Post merger...it became hell. I HATED it so much. We lost all our bonuses, the call volume skyrocketed to the point where we ALWAYS had customers in a queue (previously, we'd actually have a minute or two between calls). It got so stressful that people started leaving in droves. Our call center had probably about 1000 people. At least half left within the first year after the merger. These were people who'd been with AT&T for several years.
It was one of those many times a merger made a truly negative impact on the business. This was back in 2004 / 2005. Given how bad the customer service has gotten, I think this change is still felt today. The business fundamentally changed and customers have been suffering through it ever since.
It seems weird to me to see people in 1979 saying, "I can't live without my phone!" Pretty cool to think cellular technology did exist back then. Also those early 3D CGI animations they were using at 7:53 were pretty neat.
Trance88, I have just caught you "in the wild" in a comments section!
6:21 - With all that technology, they still can't fix the dreaded coiled-cord tangle.
I saw that too. I hate it when cords are tangled like that.
😂🤣
The cord is so you can't lose the phone!
I use to wrap the cord around the phone and then hang it up
In several episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies, you could see rich people talking on phones in their limos and cars. It's interesting how old the technology actually is.
Yes and on the show Cannon in the early 70's William Conrad had a mobile telephone. They had the phone ringer hooked up to the car horn so if you were away from the car it would beep the horn to alert you the phone was ringing.
I remember seeing a re-run of Perry Mason with the titular lawyer talking to his secretary back at the office from the phone in his convertible.
I believe it goes back to at least the late 1940's radiotelephone service..it was an FM system..i got to talk on my uncles in the mid-1970's you had to turn the car off (side note the transciver sucked battery power so your car battery would go dead if you talked too long ..other option was to run the car and put up with the static) to reduce the static and it took 5 minutes for the radiotelephone operator to complete the call..the sound quality was very staticy but i could understand what my mom was telling me over the phone in the car exciting stuff at the time...and if i remember it was EXTREMELY expensive to make calls..
There was an episode of The Andy Griffith Show that had it, too.
Do you remember the episode where Jethro put a phone into the truck? He said "Watch, Uncle Jed! I drive down to the front gate and call you! " He takes off, and Jed sees a big roll of phone cord unraveling beside him. He says, "I wonder if that boy's measured out enough cable. " Tye cord completely runs out and pulls a phone socket right out of the wall.
Jed says, "Nope, I guess not. " 😆
4:40 “If I didn’t have my phone it would be a disaster. I don’t know what I’d do.” 2021 ladies and gentlemen, right there.
@Richard Conte very true. I didn’t even think about that
I love how they portray excellent voice quality. That was certainly NOT the case.
Thinking the same thing. HD voice didn’t exist in 2000, let alone 1977.
@@mrmister8039 Sure they meant comparatively, to land lines of the time.
The guy with the beige caddy and puffy suit looks a bit like he'd be on the phone "Hey Tony, Im almost out of stock here" 'OK 'Mayun you call me tomorrow, and bring the f...money wit yu, dis time, O.K.?''
filter4now That’s a Lincoln Mark V, not a caddy!
AMPS has evolved into so many networks: GSM, LTE, HPSA (whatever it is), WiMax, CDMA, and many others. (:
We're sure this was filmed on a closed course to protect the drivers.
Lol
Yeah, sure. I'm going to trust Ma Bell. :)
Bull Puckey
I love you, AT&T. You're beautiful. Never change.
@@noway9880 lol what a strange thing to say
40 years later, people literally can't live without their mobile phones. It's a wonderful technology that has changed the culture of being human. I almost wish they never invented this. I said ALMOST. What I really wish is that people refrain from losing their humanity to technology!
Just bought a Motorola International 1000. Works great, thanks to 80's tech. thanks, guys!
Attorney driving 600cc Honda death trap 😁
I had my first cellular telephone in 1992. At the time I lived in Tarpon Springs area of Florida, and I was taking a trip over to the east coast to meet some friends, in my car, there were three friends driving with me. We got a bit lost and had to call for directions, guess what I had my own cell phone. My friends in the car were unaware of it, they were in total or when I made a phone call right for my car, to get the proper directions. I still remember that day, this clip brings back great memories , thank you for the Post. Today is August 28th 2022.
Now I get the term "cell tower" or "cellphone"!!
The title for the guy at 7:18 should read "coke dealer"
bwill140 lmao
@7:18. You are welcome.
That’s why he didn’t want people listening in!
Its hard to believe how much and how far technology has come in 37 years in cellular phones and in cellular service as well, back in the day if you had one of these phones you were the talk of the town and people were awed by the technology. It was $4,000 dollars for a phone then and now its $1,000 dollars or less for a smartphone and there are soo many different carriers, not too mention much better reception and area coverage.
$1000 for a smartphone? I'm sure you can pay that much if you really want to. On the other hand, you can get a cheap one for under $100 (without a contract or shit like that, just the phone).
Pretty sure AT&T is still running those same towers in my area, someone just spray painted 5G on them and doubled the bill!
I was in the automobile towing and recovery business on the Alabama Gulf Coast from 1980-1992. I knew the area Motorola rep, and he kept me up to speed on the latest radio/telephone gear. And once I got far enough ahead, I ordered a new 800mHz trunked radio system, with portables and fixed Mobile units. In addition to the sweet radio setup, they also had telephone patching ability, a huge plus in that business.
Along came 1986, and my Motorola guy tells me cellular service will soon be available in my city. I decided to order my first cell phone in October 1986, and it was built and later delivered in April 1987.
Phone, accessories and installation cost nearly $3000.
For service I went with the Non wireline carrier, with rates of 45 cents per minute peak, from 6 am to 6pm, and 10 cents per minute off peak times.
By today's standards, it was crap, but we thought we were competing with the Jetsons!
I'd give about anything to be back in those simpler days right now. 2019 kinda sux!
Lies. You know you love your that beautiful piece of technology you used to make that comment. And you wouldn't trade it for nothing.
Thanks both of you for going back to memory lane with me.
Everyone had a car phone
At least white people lol! Whites get the best stuff
@@briankelly9347 In Atlanta in the early 90's, several black people had car phones, mostly in Mercedes. My uncle had one in his Cadillac.
I uses to uses the Bag Phone with the Antenna on top of Car. Cost arm and a leg for the Data and roaming charges.
70' and 80' were the best times ya'll
White Crown I'm still picking pubes out of my teeth.
You mean '70 and '80.
@@seanseanseanseansean no, 70 foot and 80 foot were obviously the best
Lots of folks had pagers back then. In the 1970s, as I remember, only voice pagers were available, and they were NOT popular. People who needed them relied on them but hated them. You never knew when you were going to hear a loud buzzer that sounded like your answer was NOT what the survey said on 'Family Feud', followed by the crackling voice of somebody's receptionist who reached your number in error yelling at you that your mom called and the doctor said it's highly contagious and needs you to go straight to the ER. What fun those things were!
Thank you for putting these online. These videos are so intriguing, to take a look back and forward at the same time.
These early phones were basically high powered walkie talkies. They were analog and if you tuned your tv just right you could hear conversations.
Who's watching these at&t videos to pass time?
My uncle owned a limo company in Chicago, it was a money laundering operation for the mob.. he bought a cellular phone right then they came out in 1983 and was one of the first people I ever knew who used their cellular phone as their main phone number for all purposes. I didn't get to that point until about 1998!
Little did we know how this simple concept would evolve into the annoying beast we have today.
Can confirm "Sent from my mobile device" 😆
You have to love how you could basically only use your phone while driving back then because it ran off the car battery. Now if you use your phone while driving you get fined or go to jail. I wonder how many accidents happened due to the old mobile phones
Probably a lot. They weren’t being tracked back then. People are just gonna keep dying because of using cell phone while driving. Humans are our own worst enemy.
they did.. and the phones got blamed for accidents back then like they do now.. somewhere in the late 80s a couple companies started to release lower cost bag phones and car-mounted phones.. service prices around 1990 began to come down so more and more people got phones.. but the costs were still hgih enough that most people didnt just yack.. a cell phone was a ..call up, hang up pretty quick endeavor with daytime rates still in the 30-50 cents a minute range.. somewhere in 93/94 a couple companies started offering bigger buckets of minutes and unlimited nights / weekends... thats when people began to yack.. Motorola releasing 'Nextel' with unlimited 2 way radio between any phone in the mid 90s really started the drop in cell costs and by the late 90s unlimited plans were popping up everywhere as well as sub $100 phones that didnt way a ton... this also began the era of Texting in ernest...
outstanding video
7:57 those 3D graphics tho... so many polygons its unbelieveable
as if you can make it better
Faggatron And you think YOU can make it better?
@@SPCmuncie what part of my sentence makes you think I can do better? I didnt go around critizing the polygons in this video. Idiot
@@aktan4ik Well you did kinda say "And you think you can do better?" to the other guy.
@@SPCmuncie And how does that imply that I could do a better job creating these 3D graphics??
Sadly AT&T stopped innovating and now it simply sells commodity products and services for the highest prices and the worse customer service.
having went through the training to be a Wireless support tech (ffs telemarketing job) I can tell you this. there whole motto is "make a sell or be written up" each call. oh if you call in crying or trying to deactivate a service of some one who's died, nope, got to make that sale to them, because they get so many sales from widows and other people calling in for just that to deactivate a service of a dead person. I quit a day after I took my first call for this, since I refused to make a sale to a widow, att is the deathstar
Huawei is leading with innovation, atnt time had gone.
The AT&T that developed this got broke up in 1984. The US government thought it was a good idea to break them up. A democrat elected judge approved it.
Tanuki So true, laziness and greed.
@@seceber Bullshit. Huawei = Chinese government and therefore banned in any decent country.
1:55 Actually the portable phones that he's talking about actually are the car phones not the big giant brick phones, they didn't come out until a little bit later.
I had an analog cellphone before they went to digital... I could here the dopler shift as I went from cell to cell.
Now with digital, it sounds much better...
Up until all of the AMPS towers were shut down a few years ago I could monitor analog phone calls on a old modified police scanner. If they had enhanced security enabled on their phone it would hope frequencies every so often, but I could find them again pretty quickly. I heard some crazy stuff over the year (drug deals, arguments). Yes I do know it was illegal. BTW cross talk and static were a big issue with AMPS and of course security.
Yep those were the times when can use my modified Kenwood HF transceiver to make calls even yes other people could hear that were listen to that repeater tower but didn’t care at the time as did the same and then the hours of enjoyment hearing the crazy stuff at times like prostitution, arguments and of course the common drug deals going on?
Then my good old realistic pro scanner that was great for listening to pretty much everything had my antenna could receive back then. Still have now p25 Phase 2 TDMA Uniden scanners which are great especially for taking to air shows and listening to security and police but nothing like the old days.
when i was a teen in the mid 80s, i used to monitor the cell tower that went up near my house.. used a VCR that had the fine tuner UHF dials on it.. you could tune in the cellular channels and listen to calls.. it was great entertainment back then...
@@eldoradoboy did the VCR go up to channel 83? Older TVs went up to channel 83 which included the cellular frequencies in the 800 MHz band. The FCC took away channels 70 to 83 and reallocated them for cellular and trunk radio. So yeah TVs and VCRs made before 1983 could pick up cellular phone calls.
The technology was created to use in the car while driving. Now in 2019 you are no longer allowed to use a phone in a car while driving.
Yes you are. But it must be hands-free. In my car, most of the phone interface is muted above 5mph. (dialpad, contacts, etc.) Voice command works pretty well these days. There are buttons on the wheel to answer and hangup.
My first cell phone was in 1986 the bag phone cost $1000 Could call my customers from a small tug boat instead of using a marine operator ore rushing back to the dock to use the land line phone !!!
Didn't know that Joe Namath ran a cellular phone repair service in the 70's.
Excellent video. I collect AMPS mobile phones, and have one of the earliest model AMPS car phones made by EF Johnson in 1984. Still powers up & works fine too. Yes, it all started on 13 October 1983 in Chicago.
Does these networks actually still exist? You can dial out on it?
@@Mrcaffinebean Another comment I saw said that AMPS service was put to rest in 2011. Sad.
This is amazing!!! where an I buy one of these mobile phones?
I remember the first cellphone I got back in 1989. It was an extremely large battery that came with a wide strap to carry it and it went around the head and would hang off of the side. The receiver would sit securely on the large batter. Eventually I traded in the cellphone for something that looked like a walky talky but it was actually a phone (the best way to describe it) but when I’d call someone I’d push a button in on the side (just like a walky talky) to talk, but the person I called couldn’t talk at the same time, and while waiting for the other person to talk there would be dead salience. Everyone could hear what was being said because the receiver wasn’t like a phone, like the first cellphone I had. It was really cool.
2:23 you could tell someone was rocking the car for the footage lol
Here's a revolutionary idea. Someone should design a phone that automatically rejects any calls about your car's extended warranty.
And those still work better then my iPhone
Watch the intro at 1.5 speed to make it actually bearable to watch.
99% successful mobile calls in 1979? I don't think so. I was lucky to get 80% successful mobile calls in 1998. Today, it's about 98% successful connections.
when the network is only 30 people large im sure the 99% was accurate, you decrease connection reliability when you increase the network.
3:25 - I thought that was Joe Nameth at first.
***** Exactly what I thought too...
billy jean king
Maybe an overweight imposter...but that guy not even close to Joe DameWith.
Damn me too
It’s funny to think how far the cell phone has come in 40+ years
Overload and crash coming
And thus began an era of distracted drivers and fatal car accidents caused by cell phones. Thanks AT&T.
So much for hands free driving lol..Times were simpler back then.
Cell came out in Chicago in '83. I saw that, and it had my name all over it! The first transportables came out in about '85. I saw the first 2, the Mitsubishi 555 and the NEC. I had to have one! ALL 4000 DOLLARS OF IT! I passed the credit ap at the electronics trade show in Chicago, and had to wait for it to get imported! I bought the 555, the choice being of beauty, of all things! My serial number was something like 000047! One of the first off the production line, so new were they!32 cents a minute, analog cellophane crackle noise included! I was the cats-ass-hole with that thing, buddy!!!! No one had really seen them yet, and to walk around talking on the telephone was a crowd-starter!!! I never looked back! One of the best things I ever did! No more running to pay phones! I think I actually made money with it, because I had the edge on everyone else! I found a brand-new one on Stink-bay 4 months ago, still in the boxes! Ah, memories!!!!! (that's all I got-it doesn't work any more of course!!)
junkdeal
And it's been down hill since
Don't touch my bag phone! I actually had that thing hooked up with AT&T up until 2011 or so when they finally killed off the AMPS service altogether! These digital phones suck!
I was too young in the early 80's (like 10 yrs old....) but being that I'm pretty rural I remember it still being a "WOW!!" thing in the 90's when it first became available here. It was a Motorola bag phone. It had an antenna. it was analog. I still think that analog phones would work better in this area. Less secure but not enough towers! I remember it was 45 minutes a month. I don't remember the price but I'm thinking maybe $30 - $40 per month?? They may have been low-tech by today's standards but at least the damn things worked in rural areas! Yes I know this post is 2+ years old but something I saw on TV got me on here looking for the "first cell phone call".
I know it's a stupid question but I can't seem to ask it right for Google to get me answers so maybe you can help me. How did these old cell phones work without a sim card? What was there to prevent anyone from buying just the phone and just connecting to the network without paying the comm provider?
@@NikHYTWP Phones back then had an ESN number that was programmed into the billing system.
Not only was AT&T was involved with developing cellular so was Motorola who developed the transceiver section as well as OKI Data was instrumental in developing the computer section of the phone.
Was one of the first 1000 technicians certified by Motorola to repair their products.
Lets not forget that even today, a cellular phone is nothing but a full duplex radio transceiver controlled by a microcomputer.
I worked for ATT Wireless during the transition from analog to digital cell..we had to carry 2 phones constantly ...the digital cell connection sound quality was terrible ...of course only a few towers had been converted so we used the analog cell for reliably to make the call....
OKI was huge in the telecom industry back then.. they came out with one of the first Digital PBX phone systems.. it never really gained market in the USA but it was big in japan.. so to hear OKI was instrumental in cell development isnt a surprise
He says "only" 10 towers, but the system that AMPS replaced (IMTS) had only one radio base, located at 2 S. Canal St. Going from one to ten is an increase of an order of magnitude! By the time AMPS was shut down, it had a lot more locations. Over the years, I watched the antennas on the original towers get lowered to raise their radio horizon, so as to not interfere with the new cell sites.
I love those big glasses everyone was wearing back then. No wonder they could see the future!
The guy at 8:54 looks like Rick Petko from American Chopper.
Cellular, Modular, Interactive-odular!
All those people driving in "Park" - another Bell Labs miracle ;)
3 folks couldn't get a free line back in 1980s
wow 1946! and the speeds have stayed the same for decades! how wonderful technology is!
Holyjeezzz that voice is BRUTAL. It's like Mort Goldman from Family Guy.
The car phones in 1978 probably cost more than the car
I'm on a waiting list to get one installed in my vehicle.
6:02 "AMPS can save me 3 or 4 hours in my day, no more running around looking for a phone it's right there with me." Yeah, cell phones have saved me soo much time in my day.
I see what you did there. You're confusing regular phones with smartphones however.
Those Lapels 😯🕺🏻
That looked more like amateur and CB radios, which are still alive today.
Did AT&T ever make a film about the Autoplex cellular switch? I worked on the Autoplex 1000 when I was at Bell Labs, Indian Hill.
Black guy at 6:51 is ASMR gold! If he's still alive I'd pay him to read the back of a cereal box to me
Hed just be old you dumbass that's someones,grandpa now
There was enough collar on each shirt to make another shirt
I miss the good old days of listening in analog to some perverted farmer calling those sex lines
I'd love to see what these old school 1G cell towers looked like back then. Can't find pictures anywhere online. We see one at 7:47, but I can't tell if it's huge or small lol
i wonder if some of these people are still alive to witness the evolution of the technology
So at least the mafias and the commissioner and the chief of police were in contact with each other lol.
remember that? . . .Remember when no one looked good?
$4000 and weighed 2.5 pounds .
Phones have come along way since the 1990s
nope still 1000s of dollars
AMPS STILL BETTER THAN 4G
perry mason had one in his car
latex653 Frank Cannon had one. I watched reruns of Cannon.
He didn't put his seatbelt on.
It's entirely possible the car didn't have seatbelts. (they weren't required by any laws, and were an optional extra in many cars. I remember my dad's GTO they were an add-on option, and lap belt only.)
3:04 now that’s what I call using a cell phone while driving not like today
720p? Ok.. 60fps WHAT!!!?!?
Videotape has always been 60fps, even in the black and white era.
If we could just eliminate telephone sales calls...Perfection personified.
I'm sure the band playing the background music is the same band/musicians that played the Dallas show theme.
Thanks for the detailed explanation - now that this is a dead technology I have a question. I remember one day my dad was livid - as he got back from the south end and his phone wasn't working (the Dyna TAC 550 flip phone). Apparently someone scanned the AMPS channel, got the ESN and MEID (Phone Number), was able to decode it some how and programmed it onto another phone. They were on the phone with Russia for the whole day, so when my dad got the bill it was $10,000... naturally he was quite unhappy. He didn't have to pay as they found the 2 ESNs in 2 different cells was obviously cloned... but the last thing he wanted to do is fork $500 for a new phone (ESN was OTP ROM at that time on the motorola - jackals already had it) so he changed his number. Anyways, can they intercept this when he was already on a call driving into a new cell (locking that frequency and decoding), or only when he made the call in the first place?
Back when people knew how to talk while driving.
jb0177 Back when there were only a handful of people with phones in their cars. They weren't any better in 1977 at driving while talking on the phone than we are in 2015. There were just fewer people doing it less often.
Intelligent people have always known NEVER to use a stupid cell phone while driving!
And the phones didn't have screens to look at, text messages to read, or music libraries to scroll through.
Intelligent people can walk and chew gum at the same time.
today's teens assume what's on the phone is more worth looking at than... well, pretty much everything in life, much less the car in front of them. While we seemed to be able to drive and chew gum at the same time
And that’s when the distractive driving problems began.
It's better nowadays because accidents were happening on the phone while driving. Dropping it or hanging it up looking downward
Gee, he demonstrates the AT&T system using a Motorola phone. And, the first cellular call was made by Motorola and the call was from New York to Bell Labs and the message was on the order of We Won the Race.
Holy shit this video actually explained why a cell phone is called a cell phone! Learn something new everyday
2:18 is that Napoleon Dynamite?
LOL! He was on his way to meet uncle Rico before his big football game. 😂
I bet it was on "5G E".
The best was the high powered lawyer getting into the smallest Honda ever made…
Definitely does a service to our cells