What began fifty years ago yesterday? Mobile phone calls of course!

The first ever mobile phone call was made fifty years ago yesterday, April 3 1973, by Motorola engineer Martin Cooper. He called his friend Joel Bell at telco rival company, AT&T. His invention was a brick-sized device that has over the decades revolutionized human communication.

The device used by Cooper in Manhattan on 3 April 1983 was a prototype of Motorola’s DynaTAC 8000X – the first commercially available mobile. It cost $3,995 ($12,000 today) and took 10 hours to charge for a half hour of call time, according to sources.

By 2021, almost two thirds of the global population owned almost 15 billion mobile devices and the figure is expected to increase to 18.22 billion by 2025.

The UK made its first ever cellular telephone call on January 1, 1985 from St Katharine Docks to Newbury, and launched the UK´s first cellular network later in 1985. Michael Harrison, 24, trainee accountant, made a Vodafone call to his father who was at home in Surrey

By 2021, 97 percent of households had mobile telephones in Spain, compared to roughly 82 percent in 2005.

Countries with the highest number of cell phone users:.

• China (1.6 billion)
• India (1.28 billion)
• Indonesia (386 million)
• United States (327 million)
• Brazil (284 million)
• Russia (256 million)
• Nigeria (167 million)
• Bangladesh (166 million)

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