Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Wireless celebrates 20

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 16:02:50 -0400

Wireless celebrates 20
By SAM OMATSEYE
October 13 13:32:00, 2003

No one contemplated picture messaging 20 years ago at Soldier’s Field when the
first wireless call was made Oct. 13, 1983.

Before the shimmering waters of Lake Michigan, the stately music of a marching
band and the restless balloons and wind of
Chicago, Bob Barnett, president of wireless carrier Ameritech Mobile placed a call
to the grandson of Alexander Graham Bell
in Berlin, Germany.

In the call, Barnett said unlike Bell’s grandfather, who placed a call from the
other side of the room to Watson, he was placing
the call from the other side of the world.

So recalls Scott Erickson, vice president of international business development
for Lucent Technologies Inc., who witnessed
the call in that “cold and bitter day with sunshine.” Lucent is an offshoot of
American Telephone & Telegraph Co., which
provided the gear for the network that included the Autoplex System 100 base
station.

To add to the dramatics fitting this stadium-held first call, said Erickson, the
voice of the Chicago Cubs, Jack Brickhouse,
announced the first call as he would the first pitch of a World Series game.

Barnett’s call was the first call of trillions that would cross the waves by more
than a billion subscribers around the globe. He
recalled that wireless was still a novelty, the device cumbersome and the appeal
elitist.

Erickson said the growth of the industry defied pundits, analysts and experts as
20 of the largest U.S. cities launched services
within 18 months, and the media suddenly became gung-ho and grabbed onto the
phrase personal communications services,
which has stuck ever since.

He said the technology provided people the power to call not just a location but
an individual, the ultimate invention to flatter
the ego of humans and encourage their wandering spirits.

Today, industry has migrated from mere voice reception to voice quality, from the
elite market to the critical mass, from first
generation to third generation.

Erickson recalled a magazine owned by Stuart Crump, who warned that the technology
would change the world as we know it.

“He said it would change the lives of businessmen and consumers and the way we do
business,” said Erickson.
http://rcrnews.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?newsId=15446

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