History of mobile phones
![A man talks on his mobile phone while standing near a conventional telephone box, which stands empty. Enabling technology for mobile phones was first developed in the 1940s but it was not until the mid 1980s that they became widely available. By 2011, it was estimated in the United Kingdom that more calls were made using mobile phones than wired devices.[1]](/uploads/202412/20/UK_-_10_-_Phones_old_and_new_(2997615876)1215.jpg)
This history focuses on communication devices which connect wirelessly to the public switched telephone network. The transmission of speech by radio has a long and varied history going back to Reginald Fessenden's invention and shore-to-ship demonstration of radio telephony. The first mobile telephones were barely portable compared to today's compact hand-held devices. Along with the process of developing more portable technology, drastic changes have taken place in the networking of wireless communication and the prevalence of its use.