The first mobile phone became available for automobiles in the 1940s, but was bulky, consumed high amounts of power, and the network supported only a few simultaneous conversations. In 1947, AT&T commercialized Mobile Telephone Service (MTS), and from its start in St. Louis AT&T introduced MTS to one hundred towns and highway corridors. With this technology the calls had to be set up by an operator and the caller had to depress a button on the handset to talk and release to listen similar to a handheld Walkie Talkie.
By 1965, AT&T had made major improvements to the technology and introduced Improved Mobile Telephone Services (IMTS). The improvements of this network allowed for more simultaneous calls and eliminated the need for calls to be set up by an operator.
Prior to 1973, mobile telephony was limited to phones installed in cars, but on April 3, 1973 Martin Cooper made the first mobile telephone call from a handheld device. The prototype device weighted 2.5 pounds and measured 9 inches long and 5 inches deep and 1.75 inches wide giving it the nickname “the brick”. It sold for $3,995 and offered a talk time of 30 minutes and took 10 hours to recharge.
In 1978, the first analog cellular network (1G) was introduced in the Americas, but not without flaws. This network was unencrypted and susceptible to eavesdropping and also cell phone cloning. Over the years, improvements have been made in each version of the cellular networks from 2G, which improved security, to 3G, which made broadband internet available to the mobile device, to the now Fourth Generation (4G) cellular network which improves data-optimizing and speed of broadband connections.
With the improvements that came with the 3G and 4G also brought about a whole new world of mobile technology to the public. 3G brought about mobile internet that allowed device owners to surf the internet from