April 3rd 1973 – the date of the first ever public call globally on a mobile phone. The call was made by Motorola employee Martin Cooper on a Motorola DynaTAC device that resembled a brick at 22 cm tall, weighing around 1 kg (nearly the same as a bag of sugar) and with a talk time of just over 30 minutes.

It took a further 10 years of demonstrators and trials to the launch of Analogue public services in the early 1980's (USA 1981; UK 1985) and the birth of a global business that now sees annual revenues of £800bn and nearly 7bn customers.

Former MDA President, Dr. Mike Short, notes that the mobile phone has completely changed our lives. The launch of compatible digital GSM services in the early 1990s and the introduction of text messaging led to rapid growth in the consumer market and globalisation during the following decade. The arrival of 3G services and smartphones in the early 21st century provided an explosive growth in Internet access and use of the mobile phone as an integrated life communications device, not just a means of talking to one another.

Access to the Internet is empowering billions of people, especially those in developing countries and Dr Short predicts that the introduction of 4G services will lead to many new applications supporting people with access to Education, Transport and Health. Further benefits will be seen in the services sector with Connected Cars, Energy Smart Meters, and Smart Cities,

The next 40 years in mobile are almost impossible to predict with technology changing so rapidly. Whatever happens, though, it is clear that mobile phones and devices will be at the core of our society....and the innovation and investment will continue.