Celebrating 40 years of calls on the Vodafone network

40 years ago, Vodafone started the mobile revolution, here in the UK. At midnight on 1^st January 1985, Michael Harrison, the son of former Vodafone chairman Sir Ernest Harrison, left his family’s New Year’s Eve party and travelled to London’s Parliament Square. There, he called his father on the Vodafone Transportable VT1, making history with his opening words: “Happy New Year dad, it’s Mike here”.

The celebratory call, which is now a staple of new year festivities for people all over the world, was the UK’s first ever mobile phone call. It was also the first to be made on Vodafone’s network.

At this point, Vodafone had only been founded five months earlier, on 17^th July 1984 in Newbury by Gerry Whent and Ernest Harrison, having emerged from Racal, a British electronics company.

The historic call kick-started a new era for UK communications, but it was far removed from the mobile experience we’re used to today. The VT1 device that made the call weighed 5.5kg (approximately 30 times more than modern smartphones), provided 30 minutes of talk time, and cost more than £1,400.

As antiquated as that seems today, it was cutting-edge technology at the time. As Michael remarked after the call, he had the feeling that “the future had arrived”.

40 years of firsts

As this year’s Vodafone UK Christmas advert highlights, we have remained at the forefront of innovation in telecommunications in the 40 years since. We have also been responsible for many more crucial milestones, including:

We sent the world’s first ever text message in December 1992, from a computer. It read ‘Merry Christmas’, and was received by Richard Jarvis, a former director at Vodafone, whilst at his office Christmas party.

Vodafone made the first 3G mobile phone call from a commercial network in the UK in April 2001 and completed the UK’s first live holographic call using 5G in September 2018. This featured a live hologram of the England Women’s Football Captain Steph Houghton MBE, who virtually appeared in front of an audience at our UK HQ, in Newbury.

A few years later, in 2021, our European operations were 100% powered by electricity from renewable sources. This was a critical step towards our goal to achieve net zero across our entire value chain by 2040.

Vodafone also made the world's first space-based 5G voice call using a conventional smartphone in 2023, in collaboration with AST SpaceMobile. This supported our mission to improve mobile connectivity in underserved and remote areas.

As we move into 2025, who knows what exciting milestones lie ahead of us. But one thing is certain: here’s to another 40 years of technological innovation and keeping everyone connected.