On 3/17/1979 and 4/17/1980 the New York Times reported some interesting tidbits about mobile telephone service and the transition to cellular systems.
The cell phone patent was awarded to Richard Fefrenkiel of Bell Labs, No. 4,144,411* (BSTJ on-line has an issue devoted to early technology).
At that time, there were 40,000 mobile telephone users with a waiting list of 20,000. The US was served by 54 channels**. In NYC there were 12 channels serving 700 users. It was difficult to comjplete a call due to congestion. A central tower served a radius of 35-45 miles.
A new experimental cellular system was on trial in the Chicago area with 10 cells serving 2,100 square miles.
Electronic switching was necessary to serve the system in order to handle the complex 'hand off' when a caller went from one cell to another.
On 4/9/1981 the FCC announced the plan to award licenses to two carriers in each metropolitan area. One carrier would be the existing wireline company (if it was interested) and the other would be a competitor. It was felt this would be a good compromise to provide cell phone service as quickly as possible since the Bell System had the knowledge and capability, as well as open the field up to competition. Bell would have to provide the service through new subsidiaries. General Telephone (GTE), a major Independent telephone company, said it was interested in providing service in its areas.
The article said many in the US Justice Department were opposed to giving AT&T any cell business even though they were the predominate developer of the system. They felt others should do so in the interest of competition. [It seems to me this was an ideological dislike of AT&T because AT&T was the one who developed the system and the knowledge base, and had the resources to quickly deploy it to meet demand.]
- Patents may be looked up on-line from the US Patent Office.
** In a crowded area I can easily imagine 54 people in proximity making calls at the same time. But back then that was the total US capacity.