Martin Cooper Calls Bell Rival

The first call from a handheld cellular phone was made on April 3, 1973, by Motorola researcher and executive Martin Cooper. For the historic demonstration, Cooper called Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs, his rival in the race to develop cellular telephone technology. The Motorola prototype weighed 2 kilograms, provided only 30 minutes of talk time, and required 10 hours to recharge.

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