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Motorola’s first commercial cell phone cost $3,995

What’s so interesting is that nobody — including Motorola — thought the cell phone would be of much use to anyone. Because it was so big. Motorola’s real motivation in prototyping the cell phone, it turns out, was to get the FCC to allot more spectrum for car phones, which they saw as a lucrative market for their equipment-making business. But this is a fascinating R&D story — nobody thought they could pull it off. Well worth a read. And the photos are funny, too.

via Cell Phones of the Future Past – The Boston Globe.