
We Could Have Had Cellphones Four Decades Earlier - calvinbhai
http://reason.com/archives/2017/06/11/we-could-have-had-cellphones-f
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Overtonwindow
Worth noting we could have also had other technologies such as the answering
machine, and television.[1] Tim Wu wrote an awesome book called "The Master
Switch" about entrenched companies using their power to block emerging
technologies. Radio fought to keep television out of the market, and the
telegraph operators fought tooth and nail to keep the phone from gaining
acceptance.

1\. [http://io9.gizmodo.com/5691604/how-ma-bell-shelved-the-
futur...](http://io9.gizmodo.com/5691604/how-ma-bell-shelved-the-future-
for-60-years)

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thisrod
The title is a bit misleading. The army and Bell Labs could have built a
cellular phone in the 1940s, but they had no way to keep it connected to the
telephone network as it moved between cells. That required computerized
telephone switches, which weren't developed until at least the 1960s; that
triggered another big regulatory mess.

The details are in _The Idea Factory_ , which every scientist and engineer
should read. The main reason that AT&T didn't get the spectrum is that they
didn't really want it: video phones were going to be the future.

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michaelmrose
So what revolutions if any are we currently holding back?

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lsiunsuex
Electric cars and the infrastructure that goes with it. (cause of big oil /
government lobbyists)

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calvinbhai
And big car dealership lobby (blocking tesla).

