<P> In the USSR, Leonid Kupriyanovich, an engineer from Moscow, in 1957 - 1961 developed and presented a number of experimental pocket - sized communications radio . The weight of one model, presented in 1961, was only 70 g and could fit on a palm . However, in the USSR the decision at first to develop the system of the automobile "Altai" phone was made . </P> <P> In 1965, the Bulgarian company "Radioelektronika" presented a mobile automatic phone combined with a base station at the Inforga - 65 international exhibition in Moscow . Solutions of this phone were based on a system developed by Leonid Kupriyanovich . One base station, connected to one telephone wire line, could serve up to 15 customers . </P> <P> The advances in mobile telephony can be traced in successive generations from the early "0G" services like MTS and its successor Improved Mobile Telephone Service, to first - generation (1G) analog cellular network, second - generation (2G) digital cellular networks, third - generation (3G) broadband data services to the state - of - the - art, fourth - generation (4G) native - IP networks . </P> <P> In 1949, AT&T commercialized Mobile Telephone Service . From its start in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1946, AT&T introduced Mobile Telephone Service to one hundred towns and highway corridors by 1948 . Mobile Telephone Service was a rarity with only 5,000 customers placing about 30,000 calls each week . Calls were set up manually by an operator and the user had to depress a button on the handset to talk and release the button to listen . The call subscriber equipment weighed about 80 pounds (36 kg) </P>

When did mobile phones become popular in the uk