" wrote:
On 31/03/2012 03:36, Bruce wrote:
Charles wrote:
On Fri, 30 Mar 2012 20:08:36 +0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
wrote:

Graham wrote:
On 30/03/2012 18:40, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Guy wrote:

What is a cell phone? Used in prisons?

Oh, good grief. You use the concept in your country.

You aren't aware that mobile phones use a cellular network?

I expect he is. Guy is pointing out that you are cross-
posting to two newsgroups where we call such devices
mobiles.

So if "cellular" is an international concept, is it acceptable to everyone
else for Guy to pretend to be obtuse?

In the United States, they are called cell phones and mobile phones.

Ditto in the UK with "cell phone" often used to distinguish them from
"cordless" telephones, both being mobile.


I had a very early Vodafone mobile phone in 1986, a Motorola with a
handset that clipped to the top of a lead/acid battery about the size
of one on my 1150cc motorcycle. It was marketed as a "cellular
telephone" or "cell phone" for short.

Those batteries almost weighed a tonne, did they not?


I had a sprained shoulder and wrist (at different times) to prove it!


To make and receive calls was also not cheap, IIRC.


True, but it probably saved my company a fortune. I was managing
between 3 and 7 construction sites at any one time and spent half of
my week driving between them. The ability to make and receive phone
calls out of my office was a Godsend.


There were only two UK networks at that time, Vodafone and Cellnet.
Cellnet was of course a contraction of "cellular network".

So the term "cell phone" has been in use in the UK for more than a
quarter of a century.

I thought that the US military had coined and started using the
cellphone concept during World War II. Mind you, they were completely
different and nothing even like the bricks or dead-weights that one saw
in the 80s.


Vodafone was the first in the UK and started up in 1985. I don't know
where the technology might have been used before, but I would be
sceptical about anything so much older being similar.