The Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS) was a pre-cellular VHF/UHF radio system which linked to the public telephone network. IMTS was the radiotelephone equivalent of land dial phone service. Introduced in 1964, it replaced Mobile Telephone Service (MTS) and improved on most MTS systems by offering direct-dial rather than connections through a live operator, and full-duplex operation so both parties could talk at the same time. Technical Information The original Bell System US and Canadian mobile telephone system includes three frequency bands, VHF Low (35-44 MHz, 9 channels), VHF High (152-158 MHz, 11 channels in the U.S., 13 channels in Canada), and UHF (454-460 MHz, 12 channels). Alternative names were "Low Band", "High band" and "UHF". In addition to the Bell system (wireline incumbent) channels, another 7 channels at VHF, and 12 channels at UHF were granted to non-wireline companies designated as "RCCs" (Radio Common Carriers). These RCC channels were adjacent to the Bell System frequencies. RCCs were also allowed to offer paging services to "beepers" or "pagers" on a secondary basis on the same channels, but soon, with the growth of paging, RCC mobile phone services were given lower priority. Some RCCs utilized IMTS technology, but most adopted the "Secode-2805" system which allowed for simultaneous paging, so after a few years, the predominant provider of mobile telephone service was the Bell System companies. A given provider might have offered service on one, two, or all three bands, although IMTS was never offered on low band (only MTS, but Whidbey Telephone in Washington State had a custom-designed direct-dial system.) These were prone to network congestion and interference since a radio closer to the terminal would sometimes take over the channel because of its stronger signal. Cellular networks remedied this problem by decreasing the area covered by one tower (a "cell") and increasing the number of cells. The disadvantage of this is more towers are required to cover a given area. Thus, IMTS and MTS systems still exist in some remote areas, as it may be the only feasible way to cover a large sparsely-populated area. The basic operation of IMTS was very advanced for its time, considering that integrated circuits were not commonly available. The most common IMTS phone, the Motorola TLD-1100 series, used two circuit boards about 8 inches square, to perform the channel scanning and digit decoding process, and all logic was performed with discrete transistors. In a