DevilsPGD wrote:
> In message <13n2jgu5lnn4i19@corp.supernews.com> Jer <gdunn@airmail.ten>
> wrote:
>
>> "Commercial service on the analog network, also known as the Advanced
>> Mobile Phone Service, or AMPS, began in 1983; it was the first time
>> coverage areas were divided into smaller areas known as cells, a move
>> that boosted call capacity tremendously."
>>
>>
>> AMPS began in 1983? I don't think so. Damn copy writers are confused
>> again.
>>
>> http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/12/24/cellular.sunset.ap/
>
> http://www.privateline.com/dailynotes/index13.html reads in part,
>
> | October 14, 2003
> |
> | Commercial AMPS service turns 20 years old
> |
> | Sam Omastsye reports in October 13th's RCR Wireless News (external
> | link, now dead) that the ceremonial first American AMPS cellular
> | call was made on Oct. 13, 1983 at Soldier's Field in Chicago. AMPS had
> | been working since 1978 but not in full commercial service. The October
> | date marks when the general public could start using cellular. Omastsye
> | quotes Scott Erickson, who attended the event, as saying Bob Barnett,
> | Ameritech Mobile's president, placed the first ceremonial call. It went
> | to Alexander Graham Bell's grandson in Berlin, Germany. I'm trying to
> | find out if this was Edwin Grosvenor, an excellent Bell biographer.
> | Chicago Cubs announcer, Jack Brickhouse, announced that first call to
> | the crowd on a cold, bright day in a ceremony including balloons and a
> | band.
>
> and an excerpt from http://www.milestonespast.com/exbringing.htm
>
> | On October 13, 1983, a small crowd gathered at Soldier Field in
> | Chicago to witness history in the making. As curious onlookers watched
> | and listened, Bob Barnett, president of Ameritech Mobile
> | Communications, Inc., placed a call from a Chrysler convertible to the
> | grandson of Alexander Graham Bell in Germany. Their transatlantic
> | conversation marked the inaugural call of the nation's first citywide
> | commercial cellular system. Thirty-six years after its conception,
> | cellular telephony had finally arrived in the marketplace.
>
> http://www.birds-eye.net/definition/..._service.shtml
>
> | AMPS was then divided among the local companies as part of the planning
> | for divestiture. Illinois Bell opened the first commercial cellular system
> | in October 1983.
>
> So 1983 sounds about right.


Given all that, it does sound right. It's been a while, but I was
thinking '84 (in Texas) cuz that's about when I added cellular to my
IMTS implants. Apologies to the copy writers.

--
jer
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