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.
