Zero and First Generation Phones

Mobile phones, also known as cellular phones or cell phones, are possibly one of best thing since 

the invention of wheel. Origin of phones goes with the development of radio. Initially, it was two way  communication radio point,  which could call each other but cannot call fixed line phone. Fixed line phones were generally used than wireless technology phones, since these phones were bulky, weighing ten of kilograms and was mostly used in vehicles and ofcourse in military bases.

      After many attempts, 1945 gave light for the problem. An experimental system was tested where a single base station transmitting a powerful signal covered far mentionable distance. Operating only one phone at a time, it  was still with major drawback. Further developments were made around 70s when frequency sharing was defined. The mobiles based on those technologies are considered to be Zero Generation or 0G phone. Actually  no commercial application was developed using 0G generation mobile technology.


Phones in the days of 70s and 80s are now referred to as first generation (1G) mobile phones. These are the wireless telecommunications based on 80s standards.

           The first phone was released by Motorola DynaTAC 8000X in 1983. That was a bulky, heavy hanset   compared to todays mobiles.   Phone with battery attached measures 19.5cm high x 4cm wide x 8cm deep. Antenna is 20cm long. Weight of package is 0.9kg. 

              Great days of mobile phones started from 90 decades with the introduction of cellphones. Cellphones are based on small wireless coverage network commonly called cell coverage.   There were lot of disadvantages to these technologies and cost of the call is set very huge.

Only people of high standard had one. And  many even at top of the society ignored because of the inconvenience faced in handling the device.

Then, subsequent models were released with reduced size, more functions added to the existing device functions. The wireless cell phone device which offered mainly very basic function of talking are reffered to as 1G generation phone. "First Generation" phrase got popular more when subsequent generation technology devices came into existence.

1G mobile phones were more popular in countries like japan, US and Scandinavian countries. 1G mobile phone were analogue and voice signals was not encoded but modulated to higher frequency.

I will blog on next rocking 2rd generation technologies in subsequent blogs.