General Chat

New Year’s Eve mobile phone call that made history and started a new era.

Thirty years ago, the son of Vodafone’s former chairman Sir Ernest Harrison secretly ducked out of the family’s New Year’s Eve party. A few hours later, just after midnight and standing in the shadow of Big Ben in Parliament Square, he called home to wish his father a Happy New Year – and that was the UK’s first ever mobile phone call.

Michael Harrison had dragged the 5kg (11lbs) briefcase-sized prototype phone with him to make the call in a dummy run hours before comedian Ernie Wise was due to make the first official mobile phone call from St Katherine’s Docks in London.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/31/new-years-eve-mobile-phone-call-made-history

I got my first "brick" in 1987 from Hutchinson Whampoa. By that time they were down to about 500gm. The carphone was a completely separate fitting hands free. And so began the demise of the P.A. and working round the clock.

AFAI remember the charge lasted for about a week. At that time they all came with "call forwarding" and "follow me" which made it ez to patch yr calls into a land line. Now that is an extra. Thanks to the huge battery and power getting a signal was not the hassle it often is today. In the USA they were known as cellphones - Stephen King wrote a novel about them "Cell".

The monthly fee was far less than employing a receptionist/PA but far too high for most people on PAYE. Calls cost a bomb too.

First one I saw was about a foot square a four foot-ish aerial and a handset on the box.....
was a firm associated with Babcocks, installing Agv's in a automated engine test shop........

My late husband had one in 1987, it was the size of a house brick, you had to go through an operator to connect the, call also had huge battery in the boot. It's amazing how they have developed in thirty years.