| 1843 |
A skilled analytical chemist named Michael Faraday began research into whether space could conduct electricity. His experiments laid the groundwork for discoveries that would allow information to be sent through the air using radio waves. |
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| 1866 |
Dr. Mahlon Loomis, a dentist in the United States of America, transmitted messages for 29 kilometres between the tops of two mountains. He developed a method using the Earth's atmosphere as a conductor, and sending and receiving radio messages using kites with copper screens linked to the ground by copper wires. |
| 1875 |
Alexander Graham Bell first demonstrated his telephone. While not the first inventor to demonstrate such a device, Bell patented and commercialised his invention using his company, the Bell telephone company. |
| 1893 |
The wireless radio was invented by Nikolai Tesla in the 1880s and was formally demonstrated in 1893. |
| 1947 |
Researchers in America discover that by using more radio transmission towers to create smaller cells (the area around each tower) and reusing radio frequencies, they could greatly increase the number of radio telephone calls that could be made in an area. |
| 1968 |
AT&T and Bell Labs put forward an idea for a radio telephone network. The network would be made up of many small, low-powered broadcast towers, each covering a roughly circular ‘cell’ of a few kilometres in diameter. As mobile, or cellular, phones travelled across an area, the phone call would be passed from one tower to another. This concept was soon used by American police in their patrol cars. |
| 1971 |
The ARP (Autoradiopuhelin, or Car Radio Phone in English) network in Finland was launched. It was one of the first successful commercial mobile phone networks in the world, but did not allow fluid movement between cells. |
| 1973 |
Dr Martin Cooper at Motorola invented the first portable handset that could be carried by a person, rather than fitted into a vehicle. His first phone call on the handset was on 3 April 1973. He made the call while walking along a street in New York City to the head of research in Bell Labs, Joel Engel – his rival! |
| 1977 |
Mobile phones went public with a 2,000 customer trial in Chicago. |
| 1979 |
Japan’s first commercial mobile phone began operations. |
| 1981 |
Saudi Arabia launched the world’s first automatic roaming mobile telephone network in September.
A month later, the Nordic countries in Northern Europe launched a network that allowed automatic roaming between countries. |
| 1983 |
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in America gives its first approval to a portable mobile telephone – the Motorola DynaTac
The phone weighed 794g, about four times as much as mobile phones today. It allowed one hour of ‘talk’ time and eight hours on standby time, meaning it had to be recharged every day. It also featured a small LED display.
It was affectionately known as “the Brick” or in Austria, the “Knochen” (bone).
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The world's first commercial handheld cellular phone, DynaTAC 8000X portable cellular phone, 1983.
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| 1990 |
The first digital cellular phone call was made in the United States.
Moving to digital networks meant that mobile phones could get much smaller and more calls could be made at the same time. For instance, a TDMA-based digital system can carry three times as many calls as an analogue system, so each cell has about 168 channels available instead of just 56. Today the majority of mobile networks around the world are digital. |
| 1991 |
The first GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) digital mobile phone network was launched in Europe. |
| 1994 |
Australian mobile phone users reached one million. |
| 2000 |
Sharp launched the world’s first digital camera phone. |
| 2001 |
The world’s first 3G (third generation) mobile phone network was launched in Japan, allowing users with 3G phone handsets to surf the internet at broadband speeds and make video calls on their mobile phones. |
| 2003 |
Australia’s first 3G network was launched in April, with the NEC e606 mobile phone  the first released in Australia to support video calls and broadband speed internet access. |
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| 2005 |
In September the two-billionth mobile service was connected, meaning that the total number of mobile phone connections is equivalent to nearly one-third the world’s estimated 6.5 billion people. Mobile phone makers expect the three billion mark to be reached by 2010. |
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Australian mobile phone users reached nine million, or just under half the population, with eight million mobile phone handsets sold through the year.
TransACT launched the ACT’s first locally owned and operated mobile phone service in December, using the Vodafone network.
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| 2006 |
Hutchison reported in June that they had connected the one-millionth Australian 3G mobile phone subscriber. |