The Development of Communication Technology

Timeline created by D.Southworth in Science and Technology

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Event Date:	Event Title:	Event Description:
01/01/1835	The First Working Electric Telegraph	An American painter Samuel Morse made the first working electric telegraph using an electromagnet. By 1838 he had also developed the system of dots and dashes which enabled complex messages to be sent. By 1844 he had raised support from Congress and the first telegraph line was opened, from Baltimore to Washington. Morse sent the first message: 'What hath God wrought?'
03/10/1876	The First Telephone Call	This was The First Ever Telephone. Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call on March 10th, 1876, in Boston, through the Liquid Transmitter he had designed. He uttered the first words to be carried over a wire: "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you!"
01/01/1880	The Growth in the Mobile Market	In the early 1980's the consultants McKinsey & Co were hired by AT&T to forecast the growth in the mobile market until the end of the millennium. They projected a world market of 900,000. Today, 900,000 handsets are sold every three days.
01/01/1906	First Idea of a Carphone	In 1906, a radio engineer named Lee de Forest transmitted a message to an experimental phone in a car idling on a New York street: "How do you like your first wireless ride? The fire department, steamships, and railways ought to adopt the same method of communication." Later he declared: "Hereafter, we hope it will be possible for businessmen, even while automobiling, to stay in constant touch."
01/01/1912	The First Commercial Telephone Calls	The first commercial telephone calls in the UK were made in 1912 when the General Post Office controlled the telephone networks.
01/01/1946	The First Mobile Telephone Service is Introduced	In 1946 a mobile telephone service (MTS) was introduced by AT&T in the United States. A mobile user who wished to place a call from a radiotelephone had to search manually for an unused 35-megahertz or 150-megahertz band before they could place a call. Only one person could speak at a time and the call direction was controlled by a push-to-talk button on the handset just like a walkie talkie.
01/05/1946	First Ever Mobile Phone	This is the first ever mobile phone. When mobiles were first launched, each country was limited to its own national area - they could call overseas landlines or mobiles but they would not work overseas. The first mobile phone weighed about 76lbs (34kg) or can be 2.5 pounds. The talktime was 35 minutes and the re-charge time was 10 hours. It's features were Talk, Listen and Dial. It had 30 ciruit boards and was a massive size of 9x5x1.5 inches! This Mobile Phone was called The Motorola DynaTAC.
05/05/1983	Licences For The First National Cellular Radio Networks In The UK	In May 1983 Licences were granted to Cellnet and Vodafone to provide national cellular radio networks in the UK.
01/05/1985	Vodafone and Cellnet Opened for Business	Vodafone and Cellnet opened for business in January 1985. Cellnet's charges were as follows: -Lease of cellular phone - £164 per quarter (equivalent of approximately £262 at today's prices) -Installation charge - £100 (approximately £160 at today's prices) -Connection to Cellnet system - £60 (approximately £96 at today's prices)
12/05/1985	The First Car Phone	The First Carphone was called. In 1985, the First Carphone was invented. We saw the emergence of shoulder phones which operated with more than 20kg worth of batteries. This is why they were mostly used in cars.
07/01/1991	The First Call Ever Placed On A Commercial GSM	The first call ever placed on a commercial GSM (Global Standard for Mobile) phone was on 1 July 1991. Harri Holkeri, governor of the Bank of Finland, telephoned the mayor of Helsinki to talk about the price of Baltic herring.
09/05/1993	The Launch Of One-2-One	In September and the year 1993, we saw the launch of One-2-One, the first GSM 1800 all-digital network in the world.
04/05/1994	The Launch of The Mobile Network Orange	In April and the year of 1994 a man named Hutchison Microtel announced the launch of one of the UK's biggest networks, Orange.
12/05/1994	The Launch of SMS	SMS - the Short Message Service - was launched in 1994 enabling short text messages to be exchanged between mobiles. This enabled people to contact other people by messaging otherwise known as texting.
12/05/1998	Money Rised From Selling Mobile Phones	In 1998 more mobile phones were sold world-wide than cars and PCs combined. People could communicate with a Mobile Phone by calling or texting others. Also it's alot smaller than a PC/ Computer and is easily able to carry round.
12/05/1998	The Prices of Calls Made to Mobile Phones	In December 1998, Oftel Director General, David Edmonds, announced an intention to implement fully the recommendations made by the MMC following an investigation, made at the request of Oftel, into the price of calls made to mobile phones.
01/01/1999	Mobile Phone's Enabled Customers to Keep The Same Number	From 1st January 1999, mobile phone customers were able to keep their old number when switching networks. The UK is the first country in the world to give customers this ability.
04/05/1999	Emergence of Needing to Use The Web and Sending Emails	In April 1999, we saw another emergence of the first mobile phone's being able to send emails and to use the web.
09/22/1999	Research on Health Risks of Using Mobile Phones	On 22nd September 1999, The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee find no health risk from mobile phones apart from using them while driving. Although they urge manufacturers to continue research about these risks. This can also damage your brain if used too much.
01/05/2011	Phones Today and Their Features	Today we have picture phones, multimedia video messaging and 3G handsets. Mobile phones have become a massive part of our lives, so much so that you sometimes wonder how you got by without one. Also touch- screen phones have been invented such as the iPhone and it's many generations. Camera's and Video Recorder's and Instant Messaging are all features of our Mobile Phones today and talktime is a lot more longer and lasts for hours whereas re-charge time takes about half an hour or even minutes!