Happy 35 Years Since the First Ever UK 1G Mobile Phone Call

It’s sometimes hard to believe that the UK’s first ever mobile phone call (1G network) was made by Michael Harrison, Vodafone’s founder and first Chairman, just after midnight on 1st January 1985 in London (Parliament Square). Mobile phones have certainly come a long way since the huge Vodafone Transportable VT1 device.

Strictly speaking the first mobile phone actually emerged in 1973 from Motorola (we’re obviously excluding earlier hand held radio technologies here), although it took several years longer before the analogue 1st Generation (1G) standard was agreed and built (earlier platform tests were sometimes known as 0G). The first fully commercial cellular 1G networks then didn’t emerge until the very early 1980s.

Initially the early 1G networks, at least in the United Kingdom, made use of the 900MHz band and tended to be quite expensive (c.£2,000), as well as big and heavy. For example, the Vodafone Transportable VT1 weighed 5KG due to a sizeable battery pack (nearly the size of a car battery) and supported roughly 30 minutes of talk time. Little wonder that initially these were primary embedded into cars for executive use.

Sadly 1G networks were far from perfect and suffered from all sorts of problems, such as poor sound quality, poor coverage, inefficient use of spectrum, low capacity, incompatibility between different 1G networks (international roaming was somewhat of an afterthought) and poor security (no encryption).

However the fast pace of mobile development soon began to show and by the early 1990s digital 2G technology had emerged, which is still in use today alongside 3G, 4G and now 5G. The 2G standard remains popular thanks to its strong coverage, low power profile, affordability and active adoption (a lot of 2G-only kit, such as Smart Meters and older Mobiles, continue to be used).

As for Vodafone’s first mobile call. Sir Ernest Harrison spoke the following: “Happy New Year dad, it’s Mike here. This is the first call ever made on a UK cellular network.” Today modern mobiles are as powerful as some laptop computers, albeit squeezed into wafer thin smartphones and are starting to deliver Gigabit levels of mobile broadband speed.