Mobile Telephone System

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Mobile Telephone Service (Discuss)

The Mobile Telephone System (MTS) was one of the earliest mobile telephone standards. It was operator assisted both directions, meaning that if you were called from a land line the call would be routed to a mobile operator, who would route it to your phone. Similarly, to make an outbound call you had to go through the mobile operator, who would ask you for your mobile number and the number you were calling, and then would place the call.

This service originated with the Bell System, and was first used in St. Louis on June 17, 1946. The original equipment weighed 80 pounds, and there were initially only 3 channels for all the users in the metropolitan area, later more licenses were added bringing the total to 32 channels across 3 bands (See IMTS frequencies). This service was used at least into the 1980s in large portions of North America.

This protocol was replaced by Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS).