<P> In all these early examples, a mobile phone had to stay within the coverage area serviced by one base station throughout the phone call, i.e. there was no continuity of service as the phones moved through several cell areas . The concepts of frequency reuse and handoff, as well as a number of other concepts that formed the basis of modern cell phone technology, were described in the late 1960s, in papers by Frenkiel and Porter . In 1970 Amos E. Joel, Jr., a Bell Labs engineer, invented a "three - sided trunk circuit" to aid in the "call handoff" process from one cell to another . His patent contained an early description of the Bell Labs cellular concept, but as switching systems became faster, such a circuit became unnecessary and was never implemented in a system . </P> <P> A cellular telephone switching plan was described by Fluhr and Nussbaum in 1973, and a cellular telephone data signaling system was described in hipatitas by Hachenburg et al . </P> <P> The first fully automated mobile phone system for vehicles was launched in Sweden in 1956 . Named MTA (Mobiltelefonisystem A), it allowed calls to be made and received in the car using a rotary dial . The car phone could also be paged . Calls from the car were direct dial, whereas incoming calls required an operator to locate the nearest base station to the car . It was developed by Sture Laurén and other engineers at Televerket network operator . Ericsson provided the switchboard while Svenska Radioaktiebolaget (SRA) and Marconi provided the telephones and base station equipment . MTA phones consisted of vacuum tubes and relays, and weighed 40 kilograms (88 lb). In 1962, an upgraded version called Mobile System B (MTB) was introduced . This was a push - button telephone, and used transistors and DTMF signaling to improve its operational reliability . In 1971 the MTD version was launched, opening for several different brands of equipment and gaining commercial success . The network remained open until 1983 and still had 600 customers when it closed . </P> <P> In 1958 development began on a similar system for motorists in the USSR . The "Altay" national civil mobile phone service was based on Soviet MRT - 1327 standard . The main developers of the Altay system were the Voronezh Science Research Institute of Communications (VNIIS) and the State Specialized Project Institute (GSPI). In 1963 the service started in Moscow, and by 1970 was deployed in 30 cities across the USSR . Versions of the Altay system are still in use today as a trunking system in some parts of Russia . </P>

When did cell phones start to become popular