A Little History

Mobile telephony dates back to 1920s, when several police departments in
the United States began to use radiotelephony, albeit on an experimental
basis. Although the technology at the time had had some success with maritime
vessels, it was not particularly suited to on-land communication. The
equipment was extremely bulky and the radio technology did not deal very
well with buildings and other obstacles found in cities. Therefore, the experiment
remained just an experiment.
Further progress was made in the 1930s with the development of frequency
modulation (FM), which helped in battlefield communications during
the Second World War. These developments were carried over to
peacetime, and limited mobile telephony service became available in the
1940s in some large cities. Such systems were of limited capacity, however,
and it took many years for mobile telephone to become a viable commercial
product.