Imagine a world where mobile phones did not exist.

We’d still have landlines, and at best, cordless home phones. The farthest you’d be able to take that important call would be your backyard at best.

Zack Morris on Saved By The Bell would not carry the brick-like monster phone he did in the halls of Bayview, and we would not be able to frantically call our significant others from the grocery store to confirm the best brand of laundry detergent.

Thankfully in 1973, Marty Cooper, a worker with Motorola, was primed and ready to make the first mobile phone call in history, setting into motion the technology renaissance that would eventually give us the Android vs. Apple wars we now unwittingly partake in.

Bell Labs had been working out the logistics behind mobile phone technology since the 40s, so it seemed only fitting that Cooper placed the call to his rivals during an interview about that very call.

Cooper made the call on a DynaTAC 8000X, which would become the first commercially available mobile phone a decade later. This phone took 10 hours to charge and ran for about 20 minutes (which sounds suspiciously like my phone).

Cooper had envisioned mobile phones as an individualizer, assigning a phone number to a person instead of a household.

Mobile phones did not quite pick up until the late 90s, but you could find many business-people or even general users with one in their cars for emergencies. Thank goodness they’ve come so far in 2020!

With mobile technology, you could, in theory, talk to your financial advisor from anywhere in the world.

So, why not pick up that phone and give me a ring at 513-563-PLAN (7526) or use technology another way and go online? Even if you have a DynaTAC 8000X, I’d still love to chat. The call takes 15 minutes, so that would still leave you with some battery life. You’ve got nothing to lose!

Regards,
Nikki Earley, CFP®