About the History of Cell Phones in Brazil The First Model Motorola Microtac Lite 2/DPC-650 and Factory Mode with Secret Listening

Learn about the History of Cell Phones in Brazil. Documentary Video with the DPC-650 and MicroTac Lite II models

    The year 1990 brought great changes to Brazilian cellular telephony. It was the beginning of everything, large-scale retail sales to the Brazilian population, since cellular telephones had existed since the 1970s and in the 1980s they were already used in many countries, even being seen in period films. Here, everything was still futuristic technology until the beginning of the 1990s, when Motorola finally brought its first models to Brazil.

    The first model launched in Brazil was the PT-550 (Microtac 9800X), but other models became popular in Brazil until gradually the price became more and more affordable. In the early 1990s, cell phone lines were very expensive, some were even worth more than the dollar or another dollar. Many people sold and resold lines as they do today with mobile devices. It was a completely different time from today, when the cell phone line itself is worth nothing!

    Then there were waiting lines, from months to years, it was really very difficult to have a telephone enabled in Brazil, and even more so, both the line and the model of cell phone were very expensive.

    In our telephony museum, we keep two cell phones from that time. The DPC-650 which was a simpler model, and the MicroTac Lite II which was much more TOP, "filled" with options such as a personalized MENU to choose the music tone and many other functions!

    The DPC-650 Has a Dot Matrix Display that show some little messages in Menu. But DPC-650 can´t receive or send SMS or other text messages! The Display is Only for Messages configuration!

Watch our Documentary Video about the First Cell Phones in Brazil! (Including the secret function test of wiretapping) Only Portuguese Audio version!

JMJG Comments

    The Microtac Lite II was a more Top cell phone with a dot display (cathode) that in practice gives it the function of an Alpha-Numeric display, that is, it can write letters and display numbers perfectly! This was necessary since the Lite II had the MENU function that displayed several settings that the user could choose. 

    The DPC-650 was a simpler model, with a display only of LED that was not Alpha-Numeric but still could write a few messages using numbers. It does not have the MENU button of the Lite II precisely because it did not have any built-in customization beyond the standard. 

    We're talking about cell phones that were still very expensive, which would be equivalent to the price of a TOP iPhone today, but that's the most basic model. Imagine if there were no other models available, not even Android or Chinese models. In other words, it was very expensive!

    I, JMJG, got my MicroTAC Lite II when I started college in 1998. At that time, the price of cell phones was already cheaper, but not that much. I had to wait in line for 3 months and I also bought a transferable line, which was more expensive. 

    Here in SP-Capital, TELESP-CELULAR had two types of lines, The transferable one that could be resold, like a car for example, and the non-transferable one that once enabled for someone could not be resold or transferred to another person's name (tied line) which was cheaper but had no commercial advantages.

    These phones as shown in video, were popularly known as "Tijorola" due to their weight, which was actually compared to a brick! Huge, heavy battery, charged in several hours, with the overnight charger taking up to a whole night! Don't complain about your Smartphone, which only takes a few minutes!

    Back then, cell phones didn't even have SMS, and for that you had to buy an extra device, known as a BIP or Pager! I never had one.....

    Only the cell phone made phone calls and that was it! It seems strange to say this today, but at that time (1990-1999) it was really all that people wanted, a dream, a consumer desire to have a device that allowed them to make calls on the street from anywhere, at any time without the need for a cord! And to avoid the public pay phone, something that today many people don't even know what it's for!  Pay phone? What's that, right?...

    Today, your most basic Smartphone, even the most common and simple model, can do more operations than the vast majority of computers from the 1990s combined! Access the internet, take photos, listening to music and making videos in HD not even in the 1990s could be done with the best computer available... 

Wiping the phone with Old Motorola Devices. Secret Listening, Truth or Myth?

    Many electronic devices, cars, televisions, DVDs, cell phones, etc. leave the factory with secret functions not revealed to the public! But what is the reason for this? 

    These hidden functions exist to facilitate the diagnosis of production defects, or even factory tests for quality control of your devices. It is common and perfectly normal, it is not prohibited by law or immoral or illegal. This is what we technically call TEST-MODE or Factory-MODE.

    These secret functions cannot be accessed by ordinary users, they are not described in the user manual, and people do not even know that they exist and cannot access them during normal use of the device. Only a qualified technician who has been trained by the factory to perform maintenance will know how to access this secret mode.

    The technician may access these secret functions only to perform factory tests, verify and diagnose product defects only! It is not to take advantage of anything.

    In 1990s cell phones, the manufacturer (Motorola) included a Factory-MODE in its DPC-650 and MicroTac Lite II models as well as in almost all other cell phone models. They could only access these secret modes through a complex combination of codes typed on the keyboard, and others required physically connecting the computer or even grounding a battery pin, etc..

    Once inside this special Test Mode, you could access extra cell phone functions, such as the PX radio test mode, or simply the famous channel SCANNER, or even the LISTENING mode!

    With this, the cell phone could indeed scan certain transmission channels and capture some telephone conversations, which at first in the factory was only used to diagnose defects in the cellular radio reception mode! In the factory they obviously broadcast a fake channel with an audio signal which the cell phone captured and showed if it could decode the audio signal... The factory also did not use it to listen to telephone conversations which is completely illegal!

    It is not known who publicly disclosed the Factory-MODE of Motorola models on the internet! Due to the advancement of the internet, which also began and prospered in Brazil during the 1990s, this information could be used by people with bad intentions, and yes, unfortunately, they could gain access to eavesdrop on private conversations! So this is not a myth, it was true!

 

    Analog technology is not as secure as the digital technology we use today!

    Nowadays, it is not so easy to eavesdrop using just a cell phone. You need a special device that only detectives or law enforcement agencies have! The average citizen cannot buy or own the famous cell phone listening devices, as it is prohibited by law! Only a court order allows a cell phone channel to be cloned to perform listening, for investigative purposes only! You can never interfere or transmit on the same channel, cloning would be illegal and a crime even for federal government agencies!

    Unfortunately, what was a factory function for testing ended up being used by many at the time for fun or invasion of privacy to eavesdrop on telephone conversations!

    Don't despair! Today, these cell phones can no longer listen to anything except for hiss and pink noise (radio channel without transmission). You can no longer make any communication using these phones. They operate on analog technology and today we have everything digital. Digital technology brings more "security" because all communication is done with encrypted signals, and no smartphone has factory-installed functions to perform such decryption (code breaking). Only the devices mentioned above, which are only available to the federal police...

    Cell phones are safer today, although the internet is more accessible and powerful than it was in 1990. But phone conversations themselves are safer than they were in the 1990s... Don't worry, your neighbor won't hear you that easily.... Even if he does one old cell phone....

I hope you enjoyed our historical documentary...

See you next time.

JMJG

Eng  Electronic.