The development of mobile telephony began in 1926 with a telephone service in trains of the German Reich and Reich post on the route between Hamburg and Berlin. This telephone was the only passenger of the 1st Class offered, but by 1918, some five years after the invention of the Meißnerischen tube station, led the German Reich in the Berlin area with attempts by mobile phones.

From the year 1932 comes the first and surprisingly accurate description of the phone in the literature. It can be found in Erich Kästner children's book "The 35th May or Konrad rides in the South Seas ": A man in front of them on the pavement langfuhr, suddenly stepped up a patch, pulled a phone from the coat pocket, said a number into it, and cried: "Gertrude, listen, I'm now an hour later for lunch. I will still advance to the laboratory. Goodbye, treasure! "Then he put his bag phone away again, took over the running tape, read a book and went his way.

The first car in Germany can use phones, there was the 1958th The devices were due to the technology used for the vacuum tubes is quite big. Discussions were handvermittelt, equipment prices were at about 50% of car price.

Since 1974, there were in Austria, the B-network, which already has been automatically conveys. Seven years later it had only 1000 participants. The location of a participant had to be known in order to be able to call him.

In 1975, in Switzerland, the National Auto telephone network (mobile phone) has been introduced. From 1983 NATEL B, 1987, Cell C, 1994, the GSM technology.

Since 1985, there were in Germany and Austria, the small analog C-Netz. It allowed a lower transmission power of the phones and thus a reduction of the devices. The "Portable", small boxes with carrying handle and an attached telephone handset and a longer antenna, were born. 1983, Motorola, the world's first commercial mobile phone "Dynatac 8000x before. As the inventor, the Motorola designer Rudy Krolopp.

Through the nationwide introduction of digital mobile networks (D-end network 1980er-/Anfang 1990s in Germany, Austria and Switzerland), the required battery power of mobile phones and hence their size will be reduced again. 1992 was the first GSM-enabled mobile device from Motorola, the International 3200, presented.

The trend is increasingly toward multifunction devices with features such as IP telephony, clock, camera, MP3 player, navigation device, calculator and games. For these devices has become the term smartphone or PDA-Phone enforced.