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[[File:2007Computex e21Forum-MartinCooper.jpg|thumb|[[Martin Cooper (inventor)|Martin Cooper]] of Motorola made the first publicized handheld mobile phone call on a prototype DynaTAC model on April 4, 1973. This is a reenactment in 2007.]]
Hand-held mobile radio telephone service was envisioned in the early stages of radio engineering. In 1917, [[Finland|Finnish]] inventor [[Eric Tigerstedt]] filed a patent for a "pocket-size folding telephone with a very thin carbon microphone". TheEarly 1948predecessors scienceof fictioncellular novelphones ''[[Spaceincluded Cadet]]''analog byradio [[Robertcommunications Heinlein]],from portraysships aand protagonisttrains. whoThe just traveledrace to Coloradocreate fromtruly hisportable hometelephone indevices Iowa,began receivingafter aWorld callWar fromII, hiswith fatherdevelopments ontaking a telephoneplace in hismany pocketcountries. BeforeThe leavingadvances forin earthmobile orbit,telephony hehave decidesbeen totraced shipin thesuccessive telephone''generations'' homefrom "sincethe itearly was"0G" limited(zeroth bygeneration) itsservices short range tolike the neighborhood of an earth-side [i.e.[Bell terrestrialSystem] relay office." Ten years later, an essay by]'s [[ArthurMobile C.Telephone ClarkeService]] envisioned a "personal transceiver, so small and compactits that every man carries one." Clarke wrote: "the time will come when we will be able to call a person anywhere on Earth merely by dialing a number." Such a device would alsosuccessor, in[[Improved Clarke'sMobile vision,Telephone include means for global positioning so that "no one need ever again be lostService]]." In his 1962 ''Profiles of the Future'', he predicted the advent of such a device taking place in the mid-1980s.<refThese name="profiles0G">Arthur C.systems Clarke:were ''Profilesnot of the Future'' (1962cellular, rev.supported eds.few 1973,simultaneous 1983calls, and 1999,were Millenniumvery edition with a new preface)</ref>expensive.
[[Image:DynaTAC8000X.jpg|thumb|left|upright|The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. First commercially available, hand-held cellular mobile phone, 1984]]
Early predecessors of cellular phones included analog radio communications from ships and trains. The race to create truly portable telephone devices began after World War II, with developments taking place in many countries. The advances in mobile telephony have been traced in successive ''generations'' from the early "0G" (zeroth generation) services like the [[Bell System]]'s [[Mobile Telephone Service]] and its successor, [[Improved Mobile Telephone Service]]. These "0G" systems were not cellular, supported few simultaneous calls, and were very expensive.
The first handheld mobile cell phone was demonstrated by [[Motorola]] in 1973. The first commercial automated cellular network was launched in Japan by [[Nippon Telegraph and Telephone]] in 1979. In 1981, this was followed by the simultaneous launch of the [[Nordic Mobile Telephone]] (NMT) system in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tekniskamuseet.se/mobilen/engelska/1980_90.shtml |title=Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology |publisher=Tekniskamuseet.se |accessdate=29 July 2009}}</ref> Several other countries then followed in the early to mid-1980s. These first generation ("1G") systems could support far more simultaneous calls, but still used analog technology.
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