Anytime, anywhere—these phones can roam. Motorola Inc., which developed handheld radios for battlefield communications during World War II, brought out the first portable-cellular phone system in 1983. The principle is simple: As the caller travels, the phone's radio signal is picked up by the closest base station in an area referred to as a "cell" (hence the name), where it can be connected to the public phone network. At first, the phones were prohibitively expensive—$2,000—and the cellular systems unreliable. But by the 1990s, a slew of competitors had jumped in, prices had come down dramatically, and the technology was on a tear.

Related Links
"A Brief History of Cellular"

"The Cellular Telephone": History