April marked the 30th anniversary of the cell phone’s invention. InfoWorld U.S. writer Ephraim Schwartz spoke with Marty Cooper – the man credited with inventing it when he worked at Motorola Inc.
In those intervening years, the cell phone has gone from Cooper’s first 30-ounce device to one that weighs as little as three ounces.
Cooper, now the head of ArrayComm Inc., a wireless mobile company that offers an alternative to cellular at 1Mbps broadband speed, shared his take on the cellular industry.
“The vision from 30 years is still not complete,” Cooper said. “Instead of attacking the problems of cost and reliability, they [the cellular industry] focus on gimmicks and gadgets such as cameras and MP3 players, none of which work better than the discrete devices.”
Cooper said the technology to improve quality of service exists now. “Someday, a carrier is going to realize that QoS is more important, and the public will pay more for it.”
Hear, hear.