Charles Ellson wrote

[...]

That reminds of the 1954 film ***Sabrina*** Humphrey Bogart's
character
made a phone call from his chauffer-driven automobile.

Can't find that clip, though.

It might not turn out to be the same technology. Some of the older
kit
was effectively the predecessor of today's cordless 'phones but with
more power and consequent greater range and tied to a particular
landline rather than working via an operator. [...]

AT&T had radiophones working in St Louis (and later other cities) in
1946, so likely that zero generation technology. I understand that
local calls could be dialed - no operator. I recall a early Ed McBain
where this is a plot point. A radio link to a central exchange just
replaced the normal landline.

I looked all this up when confused in a discussion with an American
about Robert Heinlein's _Space Cadet_ (1949) in which she said "... RAH
explains how it works. Exactly the way a cellphone does now!"

I eventually realised that to her "cellphone" just meant "radiophone",
whatever the technology that it used.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone

**In 1945**, the zero generation (0G) of mobile telephones was
introduced. 0G mobile phones, such as Mobile Telephone Service, were
not cellular, of course, and so did not feature "handover" from one
base station to the next and reuse of radio frequency
channels.[citation needed] Like other technologies of the time, it
involved a single, powerful base station covering a wide area, and each
telephone would effectively monopolize a channel over that whole area
while in use.

The concepts of frequency reuse and handoff as well as a number of
other concepts that formed the basis of modern Cell Phone technology
are first described in Patent Number 4152647, issued **May 1, 1979** to
Charles A. Gladden and Martin H. Parelman, both of Las Vegas, Nevada
and assigned by them to the United States Government. A careful reading
of their patent makes it clear that this is the first embodiment of all
the concepts that formed the basis of the next major step in mobile
telephony, the Analog Cellular Telephone.
==


--
Mike D