On This Day April 3, 1973, the world’s first public mobile telephone call was made on a Manhattan sidewalk by Motorola researcher and executive Martin Cooper. Using a hefty Motorola DynaTAC prototype model weighing 2.5 pounds, Cooper called his rival at Bell Labs to inform him of the breakthrough.
This public demonstration marked the culmination of years of intensive research and development into advanced mobile phone technology by Motorola. Cooper is widely regarded as the inventor of the handheld cellular mobile phone.
While the DynaTAC wasn’t commercially available until 1983, the public mobile phone call on April 3, 1973 proved it was a viable concept and sparked the wireless communication era. From that first analog call that day, mobile technology rapidly evolved into today’s ubiquitous smartphones, profoundly transforming telecommunications.
