How much did mobile phones cost in the 80s and 90s?

(1990-2000)
How much did mobile phones cost in the 80s and 90s?
New technology is always expensive, manufacturers need to recoup years' worth of research costs. Back in the 80s, you would have to spend £3000 to get world's first hand portable phone, the Motorola 8000X. As the technology moved on, and more competitors entered this new market, dealers had to cut prices in order to have more market share. In 1990, the price of NEC P3 was £1499, which was half price of the phone at 80s. In late 90s, the prices had dropped significantly, from £1499 to £500.

Here is the development of the mobile phone, since 90s, phones are getting smaller, thinner and cheaper. 

(1983-1989)

Prevalent brands of 1G cellular phone

 

1. Motorola (Made by U.S.A Motorola company)

   

 2. Excel (Developed by British Technophone company)

3. Mitsubishi Roamer (Made by Japan Mitsubishi)

4. Nokia (Produced by Nokia Oyj corporation in Finland)

5. NEC (Created by Japan NEC corporation)

Dominance of 1G cellular - Motorola

In the cellular world throughout 1980s, Motorola had been dominating the industry despite the significant challenges made by Nokia, Excel phones, NEC and so on. Motorola's production and sales during that time had accounted for more than half of the cell phone market share. The dominance of mobile phone industry was majorly contributed by the company's good reputation by numerous big inventions of mostly communication devices since 1940s. Most of the inventions were acclaimed as significant contributions to the world and some of them were even described as remarkable events of human taking great leap forward. Motorola developed the first Walkie-talkie in the world in 1940 and later designated as the producer of hand-held  AM-SCR-536 radios for U.S military in WWII which was vital for Allied communication. The company also began making television in 1950.  In 1960, it introduced the world's first "large-screen" (19-inch), transistorized, cordless portable television. In 1963 it, introduced the world's first truly rectangular color TV. Since 1958, Motorola was the primary provider of communication equipments for NASA space ships for decades. In 1969, it was this year Neil Armstrong made the first ever human landing on moon and spoke the famous words "one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" from the Moon on a Motorola transceiver. As we can see that Motorola created numerous products for use by general public, businesses and government and every innovation made significant contributions to the communication industry which became essential use for mankind. Hence, these efforts assisted Motorola to claim the top spot in communication world. 

(1973-)Thanks to his development in 1973 for the cellular pleasure we are enjoying today.


Jesus of Cell Phone

Computer has an attribution to  Jesus (Dennis Ritchie and Bill Gates), so does cell phone just with a different name on the same title. So, there is a question: Who is this Jesus of cell phone, who invented it ? The cell phones and smart phones that you are using today are the grandchildren of the this creator's invention. 


Who is the "Jesus" of mobile phone? (Tips: Refer to introduction part or the image below)

Dr. Martin Cooper in cellular phone development

Dr. Martin Cooper(born December 26, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois, USA) is an American former Vice President of Motorola and General Manager of systems division in the 1970s. Cooper served in the Navy before during WWII period, after the war ended, he left the navy and took a job at Teletype Communication and continue pursing his studies in University. In 1950, he pursued Bachelor's degree of Electrical Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology. In 1954, after completing the degree, he was hired by Motorola, the place that directed him towards world's biggest invention later and went on to earn a Master's from IIT in 1957. After 13 years of journey in Motorola, Cooper was put to be in charge of its car phone division where he started leading Motorola's cellular research. Cooper foreseen the prospect of mobile phone not only viable in a car, but also able to be a small, light enough and portable device. Thanks to years of research and development in portable products directed by Cooper and new technologies from all over the company, when the pressure was on, it took only 90 days in 1973 to create the first portable cellular 800 MHz phone prototype.


First cellular call in the world made by Martin Cooper

Cooper's famous quote:

"People want to talk to other people - not a house, or an office, or a car. Given a choice, people will demand the freedom to communicate wherever they are, unfettered by the infamous copper wire. It is that freedom we sought to vividly demonstrate in 1973."

Martin Cooperadded, "As I walked down the street while talking on the phone, sophisticated New Yorkers gaped at the sight of someone actually moving around while making a phone call. Remember that in 1973, there weren't cordless telephones, let alone cellular phones. I made numerous calls, including one where I crossed the street while talking to a New York radio reporter - probably one of the more dangerous things I have ever done in my life."

In 1973, when the company installed the base station to handle the first public demonstration of a phone call over the cellular network, Motorola was trying to persuade the Federal Communications Commission to allocate frequency space to private companies for use in the emerging technology of cellular communications. After some preliminary testing in Washington for the F.C.C., Mr. Cooper and Motorola took the phone technology to New York to show the public.

On April 3, 1973, standing on a street near the Manhattan Hilton, Mr. Cooper decided to attempt a private call before going to a press conference upstairs in the hotel. He picked up the 2-pound Motorola handset called the Dyna-Tac and pushed the "off hook" button. The phone call came alive, connecting Mr. Cooper with the base station on the roof of the Burlington Consolidated Tower (now the Alliance Capital Building) and into the land-line system. To the bewilderment of some passers-by, he dialed the number and held the phone to his ear.

Following the 1973, public demonstration, using a brick-like 30-ounce phone, Cooper started the 10-year process of bringing the portable cell phone to market. Motorola introduced the 16-ounce "DynaTAC" phone into commercial service in 1983, with each phone costing the consumer $3,500. It took seven additional years before there were a million subscribers in the United States. Today, there are more cellular subscribers than wireline phone subscribers in the world, with mobile phones weighing as little as 3 ounces.

(1983-1989)

Nicknamed as "大哥大", "Big Brother" in English by Chinese Community

Circled in image: The huge Motorola Cellphone
Content of image: The person with grey jacket on the right is a mafia leader, chatting with his men( all on the left)  had his cellphone on the table.

The nickname of "Big Brother" was originally how men in triad society of Hong Kong address their leaders or bosses. Only those gang leaders within the association could afford and are eligible to carry cell phones in the 80s. Mafia leaders carrying a cell phone on hand often slowly became a significant icon of 1980s cell phone. Likewise, cell phone had emerged as a symbol of every gang leaders. Hence, the huge device was given a nickname aligned with “Big Brother” or formally "大哥大".

A favourite tools used by triad members for violence

Circled in image: The huge cellphone

Content of image: The offender, a triad leader, is using his cellphone as the emergency weapon to hit his opponent as he was suddenly attacked by his rivals when stepping out from a restaurant.


A newly discovered use of mobile phone which is, convenient weapon to use while unexpectedly attacked by someone else and not prepared at all. 

(1983-1989)

Cellphone as a symbol of "wealth" in 1980s


Types of people who could afford cellphone at that time:

   Businessman

Celebrity: Hollywood star "Michael Douglas"

            

 Mafia Leaders

                     

Mistresses supported by some Rich Bastards (need a cellphone as a convenient tool to arrange for secret meetings)

Mobile phones during 1980s were very expensive, priced at USD$3995 in average. Therefore, not everyone could afford to buy a cellphone at that time whereas, in the 21st century, not having a cellphone is unusual. People who could mostly afford a cell phone were truly wealthy and they were businessman, celebrities, mafia leaders and mistresses. The device turned out to be very useful for businessmen and evolved as a necessity to them as the tool helped improve the quality of business communication. Likewise, the triad leaders took advantage of cell phone to enhance the system of their daily operations. Celebrities always have enough cash surpluses to consume luxury products, thus, started to include cell phone into their list since it could improve their standard of living. Mobile phone for the mistresses, comparatively, is also a necessity tool for entertainment activity(contacting with their rich boyfriends for secret perhaps sexual meeting arrangement?).

(1983-1989)

First Generation Cell Phone: The "Huge Phone" in 1980s

    
    

In 1983, Motorola revealed the truly first portable mobile phone to the world. The product was named as Motorola DynaTAC 800X, approved by FCC in the United States. The cellular technology was developed by Motorola for decades and they took 10 years since 1973, the successful attempt of mobile phone call, to commercialize this particular phone. This operation costed them over 100 million dollars(dollar at that time). The DynaTAC 800X was considered extremely lightweight for its time and only weighed 785g (equivalent to 28 ounces). It was 300 x 44 x 89 mm and famous for its brick-like shape. The invention came under large development with the help of Dr. Martin Cooper of Motorola. This cell phone only provided a talk time of just half an hour and needed to take 10 hours to charge. Despite the low productivity of the phone, consumer demand was strong and waiting lists was in thousands.

Features of cell phone in 1980s:

1.      Function: Phone talk with another long distant cell phone user.

2.      Screen: LED display.

3.      Phone memory: Only able to store 30 numbers in the cell phone.

4.      Battery lifespan: 30 minutes (non-stop talking on phone)

5.      Battery standby time: 8 hours

6.      Recharge time: 10 hours.

7.      Weight: 785 g.

8.      Size: 300 x 44 x 89 mm

Cell Phone in car and briefcase

From 1983 till the end of 1980s, mobile phone grew in popularity through the innovations in cellular networks that were able to handle phone calls in either one area or hand them off to other areas. While not all cell phones are made to be carried on hand, most of them were actually installed permanently in the car. The term of “car phone” was more popular than the mobile phone from 1970s till late of 1980s. Besides car phones, there were also few models built into briefcase to hold large batteries to make many phone calls.

Mobile Phone Evolution

The fun video below will show you guys a cool way of phone transformation from a CLAY!

 

Evolution of Mobile Phones

 We decided to put this one in, to show an exciting modification of music and camera into mobile phones, which is an impossible challenge to be achieved in the early 80s.

This flash is created on 2010, and shows fun facts on cell phone users all over the world! Furthermore, it also described several amazing features such as 3G and maps which is nothing wrong, but with nowadays in 2012 we knows it improved to 4G!

You could play with it, read through the facts and just simply have fun with it!

Future blog

On the left side, we include the current leading phone companies such as Samsung, Apple etc. In the middle area, we will be posting information about phones from 80s to smartphones. On the right side, we include 4 topics that we are going to present.