Martin Cooper on the history and future of cell phones

(CNN) – Martin Cooper invented the portable cellular phone in 1973 while working for Motorola and eventually became its corporate director of research and development. He has six patents in the communications field. Cooper is co-founder, Chairman and CEO of ArrayComm, which developed technology to optimize wireless communication.

Cooper joined the chat to discuss the history and future of cell phones after his appearance on CNN’s "Street Sweep."

Chat Moderator: Welcome to the CNNfn chat room, Martin Cooper.

Martin Cooper: Hi, audience!

Chat Moderator: What motivated you to develop the cell phone?

Martin Cooper: What motivated us was the fact that AT&T proposed a new cellular system and suggested that this system would make car telephones work. We didn't believe that.

We believed that people want to talk to other people -- not to cars, not to a wall, not to a place -- but to people. So we changed the rules and made cellular a personal communication system and, along the way, made it a competitive system as well.

Question from Cath-CNN: How different was the first cellular phone from the one we see today?

Martin Cooper: The first cellular phone was shaped like a brick and weighed 29 ounces. That's almost two pounds. The phone that I carry today weighs 2.9 ounces, one-tenth as much, and has incredibly more capability.

Question from Cellguy: Hi Martin. When do you believe there will be one international cellular standard?

Martin Cooper: I don't believe that an international cellular standard is a desirable objective. What you care about is that your phone will work everywhere, and that can be handled in lots of ways. For example, your phone can be smart enough to figure out what the standard is wherever you are and talk in that standard. The way we make progress technologically is by being flexible and allowing new technologies to disrupt the so-called standards.

Chat Moderator: How is wireless Internet technology changing the cell phone industry?

	MESSAGE BOARD
Now what?

Martin Cooper: Well, first of all, there is no real wireless Internet technology yet. I'm going to be talking about that, hopefully, in a few minutes on CNN. But in order for wireless Internet to work, there must be broadband capability and always-on capability. When that happens, the Internet will be revolutionized and as has happened with voice communications, personal Internet will be mostly wireless.

Question from Shyguy38: Are the spread spectrum and digital cell phones meeting their design performance objectives?

Martin Cooper: Well, it depends on whether you mean the objectives of the people who used all the hyperbole in the days that these were proposed, or the objectives the engineers had. The spread spectrum and other digital phones are about two and a half times better than the original cellular systems of 17 years ago. That's not a lot of progress.

Question from VOSI: What do you think the future of the cell phone will be? There are companies that are currently working to integrate the cell phone to make it a standard in automobiles.

Martin Cooper: The future of the cell phone will continue to be personal. Having the cell phone integrate with the car when you get in the car will increase its utility, but the cell phone as it develops will continue to be a part of the person, an extension of the person. So, in the long term, you may even have your cell phone embedded, perhaps, under the skin behind your ear. That doesn't mean it won't talk to the car when you get in the car, but it's still your personal phone.

Chat Moderator: Thank you for joining us today, Martin Cooper.

Martin Cooper: My great pleasure!

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