Go back in time and be a chaebol

Chapter 1363 Mobile Communications (First update, please subscribe)
When the phone rang in the spacious study, the bell-like sound seemed a little harsh.

"The phone ringtone should be improved."

Li Yian muttered to himself as he reached out to answer the phone.

No technological advancement is achieved in one step. The company’s earliest breakthrough in the electronics field was the telephone.

A few years ago, the Borneo Telephone Company introduced a push-button telephone. Compared with the mechanical rotary dial telephone, this type of telephone has many advantages. Not only is dialing quick and does not require maintenance and adjustment, but there will also be no problems such as the chuck rotating inaccurately and the wrong number.

But what was the real breakthrough?
After arduous efforts, the Borneo Telephone Company produced the world's first commercial stored-program-controlled electronic switch, which used time-division multiplexing technology and large-scale integrated circuits. Its invention not only leapt telephone switches from the electromechanical age to the electronic age, but also brought about an epoch-making revolution in switching technology.

Digital switches are widely used in various countries because of their small size, high speed, and ease of providing effective and reliable services. Before Bell introduced similar products last year, telephone companies had already made a lot of money.

The phone is the blue one and the number is a private number.

After answering the phone, Li Yian asked:
"Hey! That one."

"It's me, Heidi."

The familiar voice in the receiver had a rustling feeling, as if the connection was not very good, so Li Yian deliberately glanced at the microphone:
"Is there a problem with the phone on your end?"

"what?"

"The sound doesn't seem clear."

The voice coming from the phone made Heidi smile:
"I know, this is normal. The signal is not stable right now."

"What? The signal...is unstable!"

Instantly, Li Yian's eyes widened and he said in surprise:
“It’s invented!”

Hearing the joyful voices over there, Heidi nodded and said:
"Yes, I'm calling you on my cell phone."

Heidi's tone was calm, and she didn't even realize that she was making the first mobile phone call in human history!
mobile phone!

This is the name given to it by Li Yian. Eight years ago, after he proposed the concepts of "cellular network" and "mobile communication", Heidi's laboratory began to conduct research in this area. Some of the technical principles come from Heidi's "frequency hopping" technology.

However, due to the limitations of the times, Feiyue Laboratory was researching "analog cellular network phones." In another world, its prototype appeared in 73.

A few hours later, looking at the big brick in his hand, Li Yian smiled. This familiar appearance was so heartwarming. In another world, when watching old Hong Kong movies, he often saw the "boss" holding a mobile phone.

"I didn't expect it to be this big..."

Li Yian couldn't help but sigh:
“The Soviet ones seem to be smaller.”

His words startled Heidi, and she said in surprise:
"There were mobile phones in the Soviet Union?"

This was obviously a bit unexpected for her. After all, she originally thought that her invention was the "world's first". Unexpectedly, the Russians took the lead.

"Ah."

Nodding, Li Yian said:

"They also have similar products, and they have successfully developed them several years ago."

A few years ago, Soviet engineer Leonid Kupriyanovich invented the LM-1 mobile phone. The following year, he made further improvements to his mobile phone. The weight of the device was reduced from 3 kg to 500 grams! This is the weight including the battery. The size was reduced to the size of two cigarette boxes. It could make calls to any place in the city and connect to any landline. Later, this mobile phone was able to work effectively within a range of 200 kilometers.

However, it doesn't matter. Although the mobile phone was invented by the Soviet Union first, it was not developed because it was not in the plan. Because scientific research and government-led promotion are two different systems, the latter controls all resources and can directly determine whether a product can be launched and promoted. In another world, someone calculated that in the 1400s, the Soviet Academy of Sciences had launched 430 scientific research results, but only were finally adopted.

While lamenting the fact that the Soviet Union got up early but arrived late in this field, Li Yian heard Heidi sigh:
"It turns out that the Russians were the first to invent the mobile phone."

"That's not the case. Their mobile phones are different from ordinary phones."

Of course it’s not ordinary, with a communication range of 200 kilometers… This is no longer a mobile phone, it’s almost a mobile radio!

Unlike cellular communication workers who built multiple base stations and let mobile phones choose the nearest base station to receive signals and send them to the central station, the Soviet mobile phone idea was more powerful. It enhanced the communication capabilities of the mobile phone itself and let it find an antenna in the center of Moscow. The person in charge of the central antenna manually switched to communicate wirelessly with other phones in the city.

Li Yian briefly explained the difference between the two, and then said:
"So, our technical paths are completely different. In short, our current path is the right one."

The Soviet Union's technological path was sometimes a different path, but who dares to say that it was right if it was not proven? The company should still unswervingly follow the proven path. As for the Soviet Union's ЛК-1 mobile phone, let the Soviet Union develop it on its own. Perhaps stimulated by the company's mobile phone, the Soviet Union will continue to develop mobile phones.

In fact, this is the biggest joke history has ever played.

Historically, the Soviet Union had corresponding innovations in many fields, but due to institutional constraints, unplanned inventions and innovations were not supported. Unless the West had similar products in this field, they would not receive official support.

This also determined the Soviet Union's technological path, which was basically to learn from the United States and do whatever the Americans did.

The problem was that the Soviet Union had invented mobile phones several years earlier, while Motorola in the United States had to wait until the 1970s to launch a similar product.

Although it had been leading for more than ten years, the Soviet Union chose to give up because it did not touch the stone.

"What kind of battery does it use?"

Heidi replied:
"Cadmium nickel battery has the best performance among several rechargeable batteries, so we chose it. However, it can only be used for about 10 minutes of talk time."

A weight of 1.2 kilograms and a talk time of 10 minutes. For Li Yian, who was used to dozens or hundreds of hours of talk time in another world, he naturally didn't know how to describe this talk time.

Even so, nickel-cadmium batteries are the best performing rechargeable batteries of the early era, and they are also the best rechargeable batteries of this era. But that is for other countries and companies, there are better options.

Li Yian said:

"The King's Laboratory has made some progress in lithium battery research, and we can cooperate with them in this regard."

Li Yian picked up the big thing weighing at least one kilogram and said:

"Lithium batteries are light in weight and have a large capacity, making them more suitable for mobile communications. Once their weight is reduced to less than 1 kilogram, and their size and weight are suitable for holding in one hand, they can be put on the market."

Although it is not realistic to use lithium batteries in automobiles now, they are very suitable for use in mobile phones. As long as the weight issue is resolved, the rest will not be a problem. As for the shortcomings of analog cellular phones such as easy eavesdropping, bit errors, and poor call quality, are these problems?
For most business users, all they need is to be able to talk at any time. The reason why mobile phones were first popularized in the United States and the Western world is because of business needs - those business elites want to stay in touch with the outside world 24 hours a day. Therefore, they became the first users of mobile phones.

“Will it really be accepted by the market?”

Picking up the mobile phone that was heavier than a brick, Heidi said:
"I know about car phones. We have them in the company, but they are inconvenient to use. There are few users, and they are very expensive. The monthly rental fee is 40 yuan, and each call costs one yuan."

Such an expensive price is definitely not affordable for ordinary people.

"really."

Li Yian nodded and said:
"Not only are car phones incredibly expensive, but they also require users to put up with a whole set of bulky power supplies, receivers, transmitters, etc., which take up a lot of space in the trunk.

Even users have to endure long waiting times before they can get through. More than a decade ago, at the earliest, only three calls could be online at the same time in a city. So much so that someone joked that if you were to use your car phone to make a call to let your wife know that she wanted to eat steak tonight, you might have to endure the other person on the phone discussing five ways to cook curry chicken first.

While joking, Li Yian picked up the mobile phone in his hand and said:
"But even so, there are already thousands of users of company car phones. So, in comparison, the advantages of mobile phones are obvious. Not only can you make calls anytime and anywhere, but you can also carry it with you. These advantages are its selling points..."

Putting the phone on the table, Li Yian said.

"Just like car phones, the company's business elites will accept it! Then as the technology continues to improve, it will eventually enter thousands of households."

Just like mobile phones in another world, they were initially used mainly by business executives, politicians and wealthy people who needed to stay connected on the go. They were seen as a symbol of identity and status, as well as a fashion and trend. Then, they slowly became available to the general public.

Perhaps this is also the reason why the invention did not become popular in the Soviet Union - because there was no market demand for it.

Only when there is market demand can products become popular and continue to be improved in the process of popularization.

Just like mobile phones, from the analog signals at the beginning, to the later 2G networks, from 2G to 3G, and then to 4G, 5G... In the end, mobile phones changed the whole world.

It is not just communications that have been changed by mobile phones, but the entire world. When smartphones and 3G networks were launched on the market, the world was profoundly changed.

But who could have predicted all that when the first mobile phone was produced?

nobody!
No one could have imagined that a device originally designed to make phone calls would bring such profound changes to the world.

But now, facing the brick in front of him, Li Yian can think of many things, including the future of the whole world...

(End of this chapter)