The introduction of mobile phones took over half a century. The introduction of radio telephony in the 1920s made it theoretically possible for people to talk on the move.
However, effective deployment had to wait for the development of computers to allow networks to be created and miniaturisation to make the devices small enough to be really mobile.
When true mobile telephony finally arrived in the early 1980s it was a revolution - for the first time telecommunications really was person to person rather than just place to place.
Mobile telephones had been around for almost 60 years before we got our first cellphones in the 1980s.
To start with there were radiotelephones for ships, aircraft and ...
All the basic technologies for mobile phones were in place from the late 1940s: wireless, telephony, cellular network design and frequency re-use. All that it required was the software and hardware to make it work.
All telephones are only as good as the network supporting them - and that's certainly the case when we use a mobile phone.
With cellular networks, design and equipment ...
The world got along fine without mobile phones for 100 years ... but it wasn't to say people didn't want one. After all, who knew they wanted a car, computer or dishwasher.