ကိုကြီးဇော် ( မုန်တိုင်း )

The very first telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell is not the phone we use or we know or we love today.

14 February 1876: Alexander Graham Bell receives patent for the discovery of the telephone. A drama follows. Inventor Elisha Gray has also developed a similar device. He and Bell enter into a famous legal battle over the invention of the telephone, which Bell won.

10 March 1876: “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” The famous first words are transmitted by Bell to his assistant over the telephone. This marked the decline of the telegraph.

January 1878: First North American telephone exchange is opened in Connecticut.

1880: About 47,900 telephones are installed in the United States.

1877: The first telephone switchboard set up in Boston.

1896: Rotary dial phone is invented.

1946: The first commercial mobile phone call is made.

1955: The laying of trans-Atlantic cable begins.

1961: Touch-tone dialing is introduced to the public, replacing the rotary dial.

3 April 1973: Martin Copper of Motorola makes the world’s first handheld cell phone call.

May 1976: Japanese inventor Kazuo Hashimoto builds the first prototype of a caller ID display device

6 March 1983: Motorola makes the DynaTAC 8000X, the world’s first commercially available cell phone, available at US$3,995 in 1983 dollars. Popularly known as “Tai Kor Tai” in Hong Kong.

8 August 1988: Hand phones go on sale in Singapore. Each set costs between S$2,900 and S$3,400.

1991: First GSM network launched by Radiolinja in Finland. GSM uses digital technology, to transmit and receive calls, making it the first widely-implemented 2G network.

8 March 1994: Singtel launches Singapore’s first digital mobile phone network, based on the GSM standard.

1998: Nokia introduces the 8110, more popularly known as the “banana phone”. The 8110 gets world attention when Keanu Reeves uses it in the 1999 movie The Matrix.

2000: General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) technology into mobile networks, promising faster speeds for mobile surfing and downloading.

1 October 2001: NTT Docomo launches the Freedom of Mobile Multimedia Access (FOMA) service in Japan – world’s first 3G mobile phone network. It also unveils new handsets able to make video conference calls.

End 2007: Singapore telcos allow subscribers to keep their cell phone numbers when they switch operators.

Labels: First histories, Tactical