Advanced Mobile Phone System

Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) was an analog mobile phone system standard originally developed by Bell Labs and later modified in a cooperative effort between Bell Labs and Motorola. It was officially introduced in the Americas on October 13, 1983, and was deployed in many other countries too, including Israel in 1986, Australia in 1987, Singapore in 1988, and Pakistan in 1990. It was the primary analog mobile phone system in North America (and other locales) through the 1980s and into the 2000s. As of February 18, 2008, carriers in the United States were no longer required to support AMPS and companies such as AT&T and Verizon Communications have discontinued this service permanently. AMPS was discontinued in Australia in September 2000, in Pakistan by October 2004, in Israel by January 2010, and Brazil by 2010. History of mobile phones The first cellular network efforts began at Bell Labs and with research conducted at Motorola. In 1960, John F. Mitchell became Motorola's chief engineer for its mobile-communication products, and oversaw the development and marketing of the first pager to use transistors. Motorola had long produced mobile telephones for automobiles, but these large and heavy models consumed too much power to allow their use without the automobile's engine running. Mitchell's team, which included the gifted Dr. Martin Cooper, developed portable cellular telephony. Cooper and Mitchell were among the Motorola employees granted a patent for this work in 1973. The first call on the prototype connected, reportedly, to a wrong number. While Motorola was developing a cellular phone, from 1968 to 1983 Bell Labs worked out a system called Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS), which became the first cellular network standard in the United States. The first system was successfully deployed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1979. Motorola and others designed and built the cellular phones for this and other cellular systems. Martin Cooper, a former general manager for the systems division at Motorola, led a team that produced the first cellular handset in 1973 and made the first phone call from it.