Home topics news News Tech News Celebrating 30 years of mobile phone calls Lorna Brett August 9, 2011 30 years ago today the first-ever phone call was made on Australia’s public mobile network, using a car phone system weighing 14 kilograms with a 45 cm handset costing $17,000 in today’s terms. The call was made over the Telstra network, then called Telecom, when phone coverage was limited to the greater Melbourne area. The phone used in 1981 for this inaugural call could store just 16 numbers, was installed in a car and alerted owners to an incoming call with a honking horn or flashing headlights. Mobiles have come a long way in 30 years, and are more intelligent than the largest, most expensive computer made a generation ago, weighing an average of 200 grams Telstra Networks and Access Technologies Executive Director Mike Wright was a graduate engineer in 1981 and oversaw installation of the first mobile network exchange in Brisbane. “Back in 1981 I never imagined there would be more mobile devices in Australia than people, and that they could be used to watch live TV, someday feature 3D content and become a critical way to how we connect.” “We called the first Telstra network the 007 Network because that was the number range it used and while in today’s terms it was more like a ’Zero-G‘ network, it was the foundation of Australia’s modern mobile phone industry. In just 30 years we’re now building a 4G network, that’s five