Originally produced in the late 1940s, Bell Telephone’s short film “Mobile Telephones” presents one of the earliest demonstrations of mobile communication — decades before the modern cellphone. Full description.
Originally produced in the late 1940s, Bell Telephone’s short film “Mobile Telephones” presents one of the earliest demonstrations of mobile communication — decades before the modern cellphone. The film showcases how the Mobile Telephone Service (MTS) worked and how it could revolutionize business efficiency by connecting vehicles on the move to the telephone network.
The MTS was a pre-cellular VHF radio system linked to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Each call combined radio transmission and landline infrastructure to bridge the gap between fixed and mobile users. Calls were operator-assisted: to reach a driver, one would call a mobile operator who then routed the signal to the appropriate mobile unit; similarly, the driver would contact the operator to place outgoing calls.
Launched by the Bell System in St. Louis on June 17, 1946, the original MTS equipment weighed around 80 pounds (36 kg) and operated with only three channels for an entire metropolitan area. Later expansions brought the total to 32 channels spread across multiple frequency bands. Despite its limitations, MTS remained in use into the 1980s, until it was replaced by the Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS) introduced in 1964.
About the Film
The short begins with a truck traveling down a remote highway, underlining the need for long-distance communication with vehicles far from towns and phone lines. It then walks viewers through:
- Real-world use cases: dispatchers contacting drivers for new assignments, foremen reporting equipment failures from worksites, and mobile operators connecting calls through base stations.
- Technical demonstrations: frequency modulation (FM) ensuring clear voice transmission, the push-to-talk mechanism, and the routing of calls between radio towers, base stations, and switchboards.
- Installation process: transmitters and receivers neatly fitted into vehicles, complete with signal lights and ringing alerts for incoming calls.
- Vision for the future: a nationwide network of mobile telephone stations connecting vehicles, rail terminals, waterways, and travelers across the United States.
The film closes with a bold prediction — that mobile telephone service marks “a major step toward universal connectivity,” enabling people to be reached anytime, anywhere.
This archival piece is part of the Periscope Film LLC collection, one of the largest historic stock footage archives in the United States, featuring material in 24p HD, 2K, and 4K.
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Overview
- Length: 10:21
- Channel: PeriscopeFilm
- Categories: Films