A Brief History of the World’s First Cell Phones

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November 15, 2022 | By Katie Rees | MOU |

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably got your own cell phone. Throughout the 21st century, our need for and reliance on phones has grown exponentially. You may have even said, “I can’t live without my phone!” a few times in the past.

In a way, this truly is the case. Today, we work, shop, communicate, and learn via our phones. But how did this mammoth industry begin? Where did cell phones start, and where will they go next?

Of course, phones did exist before 1973, but they always required a wired connection. It wasn’t until this year that everything changed.

In 1973, Motorola, a telecommunications company founded in 1928, made history when it created the world’s first cell phone. Motorola engineer Martin Cooper created this revolutionary device called the DynaTAC 8000X.

Continue reading the full article HERE.

The FCC launches detailed broadband coverage maps

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November 21, 2022 | By Shawn Knight | TechSpot |

The Federal Communications Commission has launched an interactive broadband map that provides a snapshot of broadband coverage across the US.

Maps that highlight the availability of various services are nothing new (remember those early, spotty cell phone coverage maps?). The FCC has maintained broadband coverage maps for a while but up to this point, they were based on data collected at the census block level. This meant that if a single home in a census block was served by broadband, the entire block would show up as served on its maps regardless of whether or not other homes actually had access to service.

The census block method resulted in coverage maps that were overly optimistic and not representative of actual broadband availability.

Continue reading the full article HERE.

iPhone 14s now can send SOS via satellite. Use it carefully.

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November 15, 2022 | By Heather Kelly & Chris Velazco | The Washington Post |

By adding satellite SOS to its newest phones, Apple is taking what was a niche safety feature and offering it to millions of iPhone 14 owners. They can use it to reach emergency services in everything from natural disasters and wilderness adventures to smaller incidents that happen to be far away from cell towers. It has the potential to save lives, but also gives people power that emergency responders hope they use carefully.

Pinging satellites for help is not new. There is a market of dedicated satellite tracking and SOS devices from companies such as Garmin and Spot.

Continue reading the full article HERE.

Ericsson plans to turn Vonage into a 5G app powerhouse

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November 14, 2022 | By Sue Marek | Fierce Wireless |

When Ericsson revealed nearly a year ago that was acquiring New Jersey-based Vonage Holdings for about $6.2 billon, the company said it planned use Vonage’s developer ecosystem to help wireless operators better monetize their 5G investments by developing stronger 5G use cases. That’s still the premise for the deal, but now there are a few more details about how Ericsson plans to make this happen. According to Savinay Berry, Vonage’s EVP of product and engineering, one of the big obstacles that application developers run into with 5G is that there no standard interface. Instead, developers have to deal with different siloed functions in the 5G network for everything from network monitoring to device authentication to quality of service.

Continue reading the full article HERE.

This FirstNet tech might save your life soon

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November 3, 2022 | By Adam Z. Lein | PocketNow |

If you’re not part of the first responder agencies in the U.S.A., you probably have never heard of FirstNet. We’re going change that now.

If you’re not part of any of the emergency services or first responders agencies in the U.S.A., you probably have never heard of FirstNet. We’re going to change that now because FirstNet and the technology that is being used on FirstNet is going to go a long way towards saving lives during future disasters. We’re talking about special phones, special robots, special satellite internet connections, cell towers on wheels, and flying cell towers that can be deployed practically anywhere in order to help first responders and medical personnel rescue those in danger. Honestly, it’s something that probably should have been put together decades ago.

What is FirstNet?
FirstNet is a federal government agency that maintains a special network meant to be used by first responders and medical personnel during an emergency. AT&T is the contractor that has been developing and deploying equipment for the FirstNet network since 2017. The wireless cellular FirstNet network was given a special band (band 14) on the electromagnetic spectrum in the U.S.A. such that the network is completely separate from consumer cellular networks. That means that it’s much more likely to stay functional during emergencies since there aren’t millions of other regular people using it. You’ve probably been to a sporting event or concert with a lot of people who are trying to use the internet on their smartphones, and that causes it to become very slow and unreliable. We don’t want that to happen for emergency personnel. They need to be able to communicate reliably in order to save lives.

FirstNet cell towers are often installed alongside regular consumer towers, but there are also 2000 other dedicated FirstNet towers throughout the country. Most are using LTE technology on Band 14, but there is one 5G core in use with more to come later, but the main goal isn’t so much speed as the quality and reliability…

Continue reading the full article HERE.

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