Three decades later, we still had landlines and phones with dials
Smartphones or mobile phones must be one of the most important inventions ever made by humans. The invention changed how we communicate on the phone from almost any remote location on Earth.
The first mobile phone was made in 1973, and the first call was made in New York. And what about India? Despite being only a 48-year-old country, India had its first-ever mobile phone call made as early as 1995 – years before mobile phones became an essential tool in every citizen's hands.
The first-ever mobile phone call in India was on 31 July 1995.
Two Nokia mobile phones were used to make the call.
West Bengal's former Chief Minister Jyoti Basu made the call from Kolkata's Writers Building to the then-Union Telecom Minister Sukh Ram in Sanchar Bhavan, New Delhi.
The network used to make that call was a joint network service venture between B.K. Modi Group and Australia's Telstra called Modi Telstra's MobileNet service.
Back then, a minute of both incoming and outgoing calls cost INR 8.40 per minute.
At present, as per explodingtopics.com, 659 million Indians use smartphones.
