THE MOBILE TELEPHONE
IN BELL SYSTEM SERVICE, 1946-1993
These pages are a history of the car telephone as used by the Bell System and its affiliates from the beginnings in 1946 through the end of IMTS telephone product production, although many IMTS car telephone radio systems continued on the air through the late 1990's and some are still on the air in Canada and Pennsylvania.
The sections of this site are divided into chapters to make it easier to navigate and to help viewers still using dial-up and slow Internet providers. You can click on the appropriate chapter to go there directly, or just click on the "next chapter" link at the bottom of each page.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Click on any chapter:
1 - Introduction. The First Car Phones, 1946
2 - MTS Car Telephones of the 1950's, the Next Generation
3 - Transition Mobile Phones, 1958-1974
4 - Independent Telephone Company Equipment, 1950-1974
5 - IMTS and the Growth Years, 1964-1970
6 - Motorola and GE Mobile Telephones 1971-1983
7 - Other Makes of MTS Equipment, 1960-1975
9 - Other Makes of IMTS Equipment, 1971-1983
10- Aftermarket Accessory IMTS Control Heads
11- The Final Years, 1983-1993
APPENDIX
IMTS Car Telephone Specialized Test Equipment
Useful data and files (Coming soon)
© Geoffrey C. Fors, 2001 All rights reserved