History of Wireless Communication

From the Birth of Telecommunications to the Modern Era of Cellular Communications and Wireless Local Area Networks

• pre-1600s — The first telegraph? Perhaps drum communication [wikipedia] or signal torches, such as thosed used for communication in ancient Greece [mlahanas.de] as early as 1100s BC?
• 1664-1685 — Robert Hooke [wikipedia demonstrates acoustic communication using wires stretched over wood frames [columbia.edu]
• 1747 — William Watson [answers.com] demonstrates transmission of electrical signals over two mile wire
• 1753 — "C.M." proposes extension to Watson's system that uses 26 wires to send messages [The Well]. Author is elsewhere identified as "Charles Morrison"
• 1774 — George Louis Lesage builds 26-line telegraph [answers.com] based on C.M.'s design
• 1792 — One of the first telecommunications systems of the industrial age was pioneered by Claude Chappe [wikipedia]. It was a semaphore system using mechanical arms. This was the first system called "telegraph" meaning "far writer". Other semaphore telegraphs [wikipedia] were developed in a similar time frame.
• 1796 — Don Francisco Salvá i Campillo installs 22 wire telegraph system linking Madrid and Aranjuez [answers.com] (50 km distance). Signals are detected by people holding the wires who feel shocks or tingling!
• 1809 — Samuel Thomas von Soemmering [incredible-people.com] develops electro-chemical telegraph based on sending electrical signals over wires through containers of acid.
• 1832 — Baron Pavel L'vovitch Schilling (aka Paul Schilling) [wikipedia] demonstrates electromechanical telegraph using binary communication.
• 1833 — Carl Friedrich Gauss [wikipedia] and Wilhelm Eduard Weber [wikipedia] deploy first regularly used electromechanical telegraph.

• *1867 — Maxwell predicts existence of electromagnetic (EM) waves
• *1887 — Hertz proves existence of EM waves; first spark transmitter generates a spark in a receiver several meters away
• 1890 — Branly develops coherer for detecting radio waves
• 1896 — Guglielmo Marconi demonstrates wireless telegraph to English telegraph office

• *1897 — ``The Birth of Radio'' - Marconi awarded patent for wireless telegraph
• 1897 — First ``Marconi station'' established on Needles island to communicate with English coast
• 1898 — Marconi awarded English patent no. 7777 for tuned communication
• 1898 — Wireless telegraphic connection between England and France established

• *1901 — Marconi successfully transmits radio signal across Atlantic Ocean from (first wireless communication across the ocean)
  Cornwall to Newfoundland
• 1902 — First bidirectional communication across Atlantic
• 1909 — Marconi awarded Nobel prize for physics

• *1914 — First voice over radio transmission
• 1920s — Mobile receivers installed in police cars in Detroit
• 1930s — Mobile transmitters developed; radio equipment occupied most of police car trunk
• *1935 — Frequency modulation (FM) demonstrated by Armstrong
• 1940s — Majority of police systems converted to FM

• 1946 — First interconnection of mobile users to public switched telephone
  network (PSTN)
• 1949 — FCC recognizes mobile radio as new class of service
• 1940s — Number of mobile users > 50K
• 1950s — Number of mobile users > 500K
• 1960s — Number of mobile users > 1.4M
• 1960s — Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS) introduced; supports full-duplex, auto dial, auto trunking
• 1976 — Bell Mobile Phone has 543 pay customers using 12 channels in the New York City area; waiting list is 3700 people; service is poor due to blocking

• 1979 — NTT/Japan deploys first cellular communication system
• *1983 — Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) deployed in US in 900 MHz band: supports 666 duplex channels
• 1989 — Groupe Spècial Mobile defines European digital cellular standard, GSM
• *1991 — US Digital Cellular phone system introduced
• 1992 — First GSM phones approved for sale.
• 1992 — Text messaging, or short messaging service (SMS), was designed as part of the GSM cellular system.
• *1993 — IS-95 code-division multiple-access (CDMA) spread- spectrum digital cellular system deployed in US
• *1994 — GSM system deployed in US, relabeled ``Global System for
  Mobile Communications''

• 1990 — Formation of IEEE 802.11 Working Group to define standards for Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs)
• 1997 — Release of IEEE 802.11 WLAN protocol, supporting 1-2 Mbit/s data rates in the 2.4 GHz ISM band
• 1999 — Release of IEEE 802.11b WLAN protocol, supporting 1-11 Mbit/s data rates in the 2.4 GHz ISM band
• 1999 — Release of IEEE 802.11a WLAN protocol, supporting 1-54 Mbit/s data rates in the 5 GHz ISM band
• 2003 — Release of IEEE 802.11g WLAN protocol, supporting 1-54 Mbit/s data rates in the 2.4 GHz ISM band
• 2009 — Release of IEEE 802.11n WLAN protocol, supporting up to 150 Mbit/s data rates in both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz ISM bands.

• *1995 - FCC auctions off frequencies in Personal Communications System (PCS) band at 1.8 GHz for mobile telephony
• 1997 — Number of cellular telephone users in U.S. > 50M
• 1999 — First of the "third generation" cellular systems are standardized: Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) is the follow-on to the GSM system, and cdma2000 is the evolution of the IS-95 CDMA system
• 1999 — Bluetooth specification introduced (See History of Bluetooth. Bluetooth is a wireless personal area network (WPAN) that is often used for cellular headsets and car kits. Later, v. 1.1 was ratified as IEEE Standard 802.15.1-2002. Official Bluetooth web site
• 2008 — FCC no longer requires cellular providers to support analog service. See the 2002 FCC Report and Order