Amos Edward Joel Jr. (March 12, 1918 – October 25, 2008) was an American electrical engineer, known for several contributions and over seventy patents related to telecommunications switching systems.

Biography

Joel was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

, and spent portions of his youth living in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, where he graduated from

DeWitt Clinton High School , motto_translation = Without Work Nothing Is Accomplished , image = DeWitt Clinton High School front entrance IMG 7441 HLG.jpg , seal_image = File:Clinton News.JPG , seal_size = 124px , ...

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

.Martin, Andrew
"Amos E. Joel Jr., Cellphone Pioneer, Dies at 90"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', October 27, 2008. Accessed October 29, 2008. He earned his

B.Sc. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

(1940) and M.Sc. (1942) in electrical engineering from

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, where he worked on the Rockefeller Differential Analyzer (project headed by

Vannevar Bush Vannevar Bush ( ; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all warti ...

), and a thesis on functional design of relays and switch circuits, advised by Samuel H. Caldwell. Joel worked at

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial Research and development, research and scientific developm ...

(1940–83) where he first undertook

cryptology Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...

studies (collaboration with

Claude Shannon Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer known as a "father of information theory". As a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts Inst ...

), followed by studies on electronic switching system that resulted in the

1ESS switch The Number One Electronic Switching System (1ESS) was the first large-scale stored program control (SPC) telephone exchange or electronic switching system in the Bell System. It was manufactured by Western Electric and first placed into servi ...

(1948–60). He then headed the development of advanced telephone services (1961–68), which led to several

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

s, including one on

Traffic Service Position System The Traffic Service Position System (TSPS) was developed by Bell Labs in Columbus, Ohio to replace traditional cord switchboards. The first TSPS was deployed in 1969 and used the Stored Program Control-1A CPU, "Piggyback" twistor memory (a prop ...

and a mechanism for

handoff In cellular telecommunications, handover, or handoff, is the process of transferring an ongoing call or data session from one channel connected to the core network to another channel. In satellite communications it is the process of transf ...

in cellular communication (1972). The latter invention made mobile telephony widely available by allowing a multitude of callers to use the limited number of available frequencies simultaneously and by allowing the seamless switching of calls from tower to tower as callers traveled. After 1983, he worked as a consultant to

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...

, developing mechanisms for

optical switching An optical transistor, also known as an optical switch or a light valve, is a device that switches or amplifies optical signals. Light occurring on an optical transistor's input changes the intensity of light emitted from the transistor's output wh ...

. Joel died in his home in Maplewood, New Jersey, on October 25, 2008, at age 90.

Publications

*''Electronic Switching: Central Office Systems of the World'' (

IEEE Press The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

, 1976) *With Robert J. Chapuis (eds.): ''100 Years of Telephone Switching (1878–1978: Part 1: Manual and Electromechanical Switching)'',

Elsevier Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as '' The Lancet'', ''Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', ...

1982. Part 2: ''Electronics, Computers and Telephone Switching'' (

, 1990). *''A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System: the Early Years, 1875–1925'' (

, 1985) *''A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System: Switching Technology, 1925–1975'' (

) *''

Asynchronous Transfer Mode Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a telecommunications standard defined by American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and ITU-T (formerly CCITT) for digital transmission of multiple types of traffic. ATM was developed to meet the needs of ...

'' (

, 1993)

Awards

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

state's outstanding patent (1972) *

IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal The IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal is an award honoring ''"exceptional contributions to communications and networking sciences and engineering"'' in the field of telecommunications. The medal is one of the highest honors awarded by the Instit ...

(1976) *Franklin Institute's

Stuart Ballantine Medal {{notability, date=February 2018 The Stuart Ballantine Medal was a science and engineering award presented by the Franklin Institute, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It was named after the US inventor Stuart Ballantine. Laureates *1947 - Geo ...

(1981) *Columbian Medal (

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...

, 1983) *

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

(1981). *

ITU The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...

Centenary Prize (1983) *

Kyoto Prize The is Japan's highest private award for lifetime achievement in the arts and sciences. It is given not only to those that are top representatives of their own respective fields, but to "those who have contributed significantly to the scientific, ...

(1989) *

Inventor of the Year (1989) *

IEEE Medal of Honor The IEEE Medal of Honor is the highest recognition of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It has been awarded since 1917, when its first recipient was Major Edwin H. Armstrong. It is given for an exceptional contributio ...

(1992) *

National Medal of Technology The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (formerly the National Medal of Technology) is an honor granted by the President of the United States to American inventors and innovators who have made significant contributions to the development ...

(1993) *

National Inventors Hall of Fame The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a U.S. patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also oper ...

(2008) * Marconi Society Lifetime Achievement Award (2009)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Joel, Amos 1918 births 2008 deaths American electrical engineers Fellow Members of the IEEE IEEE Medal of Honor recipients Kyoto laureates in Advanced Technology MIT School of Engineering alumni National Medal of Technology recipients People from Maplewood, New Jersey Scientists from Philadelphia Scientists at Bell Labs People from the Bronx Jewish American scientists DeWitt Clinton High School alumni 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews Presidents of the IEEE Communications Society