Thread: First mobile phone sold in Australia. Seen one?

A rich uncle had one of the first mobile phones, fitted to his new Alfa in the early '80s I think it was.

The phone numbers started with 007 so that's where that reference comes from.

And yes, it was like a brick !!

From an article I found, 23/02/07.

Before that most mobile phones were usually permanently installed in vehicles as car phones.
The new service replaced a limited mobile network, known as Mobile Telephone System 007 (or PAMPS), which was introduced in 1981.
Telstra said the first mobile phones in Australia were about the size of a briefcase, cost more than $4000 and had a battery life of little more than 20 minutes.

The era of the portable phone has now arrived

Mobilenet, Telecom's new cellular mobile telephone network service, will open in Sydney today. It will offer truly portable (hand-held) telephones and can support many more users than the current system, which is fast nearing capacity.
Telecom is offering a range of car, briefcase-sized and hand-held units and has also authorised a number of private companies to supply telephones for the new service.
Whatever brand of terminal you choose, you will have to pay Telecom a network-access fee of $600 a year.
All calls to and from Mobilenet telephone numbers will be charged at timed trunk-call rates. Telecom is offering three models in its Explorer range of cellular mobile telephone systems: The Traveller, permanently mounted in a vehicle.
The Attache, a briefcase-sized unit which can be either portable, vehicle-mounted, or both A walkie-talkie-sized device called Walkabout.

Stuff that says Telstra on the front usually has a sticker on the back telling a name of the manufacturer.

My first phone was a NEC P3. I missed out on a job after not checking my answering machine at the right time, and went out and bought it the next day.

I was 17 when I purchased my first mobile...

And NEC P5 with in car kit etc...

Cost me $5800.00 back then

Worst thing was I also had a multiline text Pager and often would be paged to "pls call xxxxxxxx" because no-one wanted the bill for calling a mobile

Wow have times changed!!!

I'm pretty certain mobile phone services were available in Sydney and Melbourne in the 1940s - but limited to about 30 subscribers in each city (as each had a dedicated VHF frequency), and the equipment was installed in your car.

John

I'm with Tombie,

Got my first mobile not long after the general AMPS service was activated down here in Melbourne. It was a Telstra Walkabout (NEC P3) and cost a significant snick of my monthly pay. I then had to save up again to get the car kit.

I too also had the pager and people would send similar "please call ..." messages to those Tombie got. In my case it seems they didn't understand the "new" phone number and thought someone had written it down wrong.

On a side note, apart from the usefulness to me as a support technician, it was actually cheaper to call my girlfriend in Sydney on the mobile than via landline at normal STD rates. That was actually the main motivator, truth be told .

Ah, those were the days.

Cheers,
Iain

Dad had VHF radios in all his business vehicles, I think he installed them in about 1971 or '72 ?

Anyway, they were Australian made Pye's and the handpieces looked a squared off or futuristic (for the time) telephone handpiece.

If we were in the city and using the two way you would get some double and triple takes. I loved it being all of about six or seven

My first mobile phone was bought in '89 but I wasn't flush enough to buy a mobile mobile, it was an NEC in car jobbie.
My rationale was if I was out of the truck I was too busy to answer the phone

An old acquaintance and business partner had one of those half a suitcase, tote along jobs like the Ericsson Simon posted above.
He thought he was Joe Cool carrying it everywhere.

I upgraded two years later to the first of the Motorola Micro TAC's, the very first flip phone.
Damn, didn't I think I was cool then

As Mike said, how times have changed.

Originally Posted by pfillery

...........I was curious as to whether anyone knows the phone I'm talking about?

If is a white handset whith a key in the side, it is one of the original 007 car phones (NEC120). The next model had a black handset (NEC180) & the transceiver was about half the size of the 120.
When the analogue cellular system started in 1987, that model handset (I have one somewhere ) was very similar with a few more features. The 007 network was closed in 1990.

I worked for Telecom/Telstra fitting these & later model hand free kits from 1987 till 2006. I'll dig out the old handset & post a pic.