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Communications Network

Our Reliance on Cellphones Began 35 Years Ago This Week (qz.com) 123

Posted by msmash from the this-week-in-history dept.
With 95% of Americans owning a cellphone, it can feel like we've been calling, texting, and tweeting on the go forever. But the infrastructure supporting our cellphones has actually not been around that long. From a report: While we're now on 4G networks, it was only 35 years ago this week that Ameritech (now part of AT&T) launched 1G, or the first commercial cell phone network. That network, called the Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS), went online on October 13, 1983, allowing people in the Chicago area to make and receive mobile calls for the first time. Ameritech president Bob Barnett, who made the first call, decided to make the historic moment count by ringing Alexander Graham Bell's grandson. A little more than a year later, UK's Vodafone hosted its first commercial call on New Year's Day. Israel's Pelephone followed suit in 1986, followed by Australia in 1987.

Cellphone technology had been around for quite a while before that. AMPS was in development for around 15 years, and engineers made the first mobile call on a prototype network a decade before the first commercial network call. It took that long to troubleshoot the various hardware, software, and radio frequency issues associated with setting up a fully functional commercial network.
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Our Reliance on Cellphones Began 35 Years Ago This Week More

Our Reliance on Cellphones Began 35 Years Ago This Week

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  • General affordability (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DaMattster ( 977781 ) on Sunday October 14, 2018 @04:16PM (#57477392)
    It did not become generally affordable to the masses until around early 2009 when we saw the beginnings of unlimited cell usage at a fixed price point courtesy of Boost Mobile. In January of 2009, Boost introduced an unlimited phone plan for 50.00 and it touched off a revolution. Before that time, plans were metered and expensive.

    • Re:General affordability (Score:4, Informative)

      by Toth ( 36602 ) on Sunday October 14, 2018 @04:25PM (#57477418)

      I had a "cellphone" provided by my employer 30 ago. It was expensive and huge. "a dollar a holler" It was only provided for managers and some territory supervisors.
      Now all our managers and field employees have them. We have custom applications so all technicians can see their assigned calls and update them live.

    • Re:General affordability (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14, 2018 @04:27PM (#57477430)

      Unlimited plans existed years before that, just not in the US.

    • On the west coast of the USA, by 2004 even most poor people had cell phones, and you could buy prepaid phones at most convenience stores.

      By 2009 they were standard kit even for the homeless.

      35 years ago, most people didn't even have a pager.

    • What you're really talking about is the smartphone era; really kicked off by 2008's iPhone 3G. Dumb phones.. they were cheap enough that large swaths of even the lower middle class had one by the very early 00s, with mostly linear growth thereafter. The first data over on PewInternet.org shows 62% adoption in 2002, which fits with what I recall. A year earlier I had finally caught up with my high school classmates and gotten the monochrome classic Nokia 3310 candybar phone... it made calls, sent texts, had
      • The old Crackberry (the 8100 series) was in heavy use in 2006 and 2007, it seemed that everyone with a corporate phone had either a Windows CE phone or a Crackberry. Probably 20+ million of those (and I'd say they classify as smartphones, even if the UI is different) in use before the iPhone release.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          It's kind of amazing how these companies have massively popular products that dominate the market (Nokia, Blackberry) and then start talking completely bollocks, baffling everyone with management-speak buzzwords until they become irrelevant.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Greyfox ( 87712 )
      My first boss got one back in '89 or '90. Big old brick of a thing. He loved to wander into the bathroom and take a leak while talking to whoever was on the other side, because that's just the kind of guy he was. By '98 or so they were getting pretty common. You could get a pre-paid one pretty reasonably. In the early to mid '00's, you could get a pretty decent Nokia phone that did most of the stuff recent smart phones do. They were mostly ignored and Apple handily beat them down with the first iPhone. Ever

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
      They became generally affordable to the masses in the late 90s. I worked in the computer shop at my university bookstore, we started selling cell phones in 1999.

      They weren't flying off the shelves but we still sold a few each day. By 2001 just about everyone I knew had a cell phone of their own.
    • I think AT&T had 500 minutes for $50 in 2005 or so. 10 cents a minute was about the same as landline long distance in the late 90s.

    • Huh? I got my first modern cell phone in 2004, with a fixed monthly rate, in Australia. Can't recall whether it was with Telstra or Optimus now.

      It's a Samsung flip phone—an X640, I believe. I still have it, and it still works.

    • My first cell phone was a car phone in 1990 in Canada.

      The cost was $30/month for a three year term plus (I believe) $57 for the radio license and something like $200 for car installation.

      Coverage was all through Ontario for about 200 minutes a month. I can't remember what happened if you went over but I think it was around $0.30 per minute.

      I still have that cell phone number - it is probably the second most constant thing in life (my first being my Social Insurance Number - Canadian version of SS).

    • Nah. I had a personal cell phone in 1997. It was affordable.

      It wasn't a smartphone. And it didn't do text.

      And it was almost as big as a frigging brick, and the huge battery only lasted (on standby) about 6 hours. So if you wanted to use it all business day you needed an extra battery.

      But only 2 years later I got a StarTac, which was tiny, and with the optional larger battery (still tiny) lasted more than a day. And the plan was still affordable.

    • We can keep playing this game. However by 2009 Cell phones were quite common with the masses. (Not smart phones, but normal cell phones)
      I would say general ability of Cell phone was actually 1997/1998 when they stopped roaming fees, and a reasonable amount of minutes for around $25. This point it was more affordable then some LAN Line phone services.
      At around this time, people with Cell phones became common occurrence, not not something particularly impressive, compared to the late 1980's and early 1990'

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nasch ( 598556 )

      The data do not support this claim.

      https://blog.cartesian.com/the... [cartesian.com]

      There is no spike or abrupt increase in 2009.

  • I still don't own a cell phone. I'm like Raymond fucking Reddington - I let my servant, whom I choose to call "SuperKendall", for sentimental reasons, carry one of several dozen burner phones which I use in the event that I want to order some chateaubriand and a nice Richebourg Grand Cru 1949 from my local watering hole.

  • cellphone (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    FALSE.

    *Your* reliance on cell phones began 30 years ago.

    *I* can survive without one.

  • Fixed it for you.

    We are still not 100% reliant on cell phones. Most businesses and homes still use land lines. A very significant chunk of people are cutting the cord. But they are not even the majority yet.

  • Next story (Score:3)

    by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Sunday October 14, 2018 @04:50PM (#57477528)

    Our reliance on clean water started ...
    Our reliance on indoor plumbing started ...

    Advances that lead to better lives for people are awesome. Reliance on them is a good thing.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Clean water and indoor plumbing are up there with immunization and antibiotics-they have saved millions of lives. Cell phones will never do that.

      Cell phone are nothing more than a simple convenience, just like microwave ovens, dishwashers, and wireless remove controls. We can easily live without them without significantly reducing our standard of living, health, or life expectancy.

      Challenge your dependency and put down your cell phone and tune out of insta-pic, insta-txt, insta-meme, insta-comment, insta-e

      • In 2006 they did a study in the UK which found that 137 more lives per 100,000 patients were saved due to cell phones. More than 291,000 calls are made to 911 in the U.S. daily. In 2010 after the Haitian earthquake cell phones were the only method of communication still working, as landlines were inoperable. So yeah, cell phone save lives and are more than just a convenience.
    • Kids staying indoors and developing mental health disorders from social networking is not awesome.

      • Kids staying indoors and developing mental health disorders from social networking is not awesome.

        It's a great deal of more awesome than setting up strawman arguements.

  • Canada? (Score:3)

    by ClickOnThis ( 137803 ) on Sunday October 14, 2018 @05:27PM (#57477644) Journal

    TFA mentions 1G cellular service beginning in the USA (1983), UK (1984), Israel (1986) and Australia (1987.)

    No mention of Canada, where cellular service went live on Canada Day (July 1) 1985.

    I suspect there are other omissions.

    • I saw my first one (in a bag) either 1986 or 1987 in Canada.

      Quite impressive as it was in Belleville Ontario which means there was some infrastructure back then.

      • The major players at the time (Cantel and Bell Mobility) built out in the major metropolitan areas and then built on the highways in between the cities (401, 400, hw7, etc.) Belleville was between Toronto and Montreal (and Kingston in between) so it (rightly) got some attention.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          The major players at the time (Cantel and Bell Mobility) built out in the major metropolitan areas and then built on the highways in between the cities (401, 400, hw7, etc.) Belleville was between Toronto and Montreal (and Kingston in between) so it (rightly) got some attention.

          My family got one somehere around 1988 or so - I think Cantel actually started building out in the Vancouver area and saw some news article about it. Next thing I knew, on the wekend we headed to the mall and visited the store. We go

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Moskit ( 32486 )

      Summary is directly lifted from Wikipedia article, which provides just these examples.

    • I suspect there are other omissions.

      By my count I would suspect 190 other omissions.

  • Statistics... (Score:3)

    by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Sunday October 14, 2018 @05:51PM (#57477716)

    With 95% of Americans owning a cellphone...

    Source for that? I'm kinda doubting it's that high given general age distribution.

    • Says about 327MM in the US [wikipedia.org] so right around 95%. Sure, many people have two or even more cell phones, but there is still about one cellphone per person in the US, and it's been a LONG time since I've ever ran into a person who did not have a cellphone - even the elderly.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by SeaFox ( 739806 )

        Says about 327MM in the US [wikipedia.org] so right around 95%. Sure, many people have two or even more cell phones, but there is still about one cellphone per person in the US, and it's been a LONG time since I've ever ran into a person who did not have a cellphone - even the elderly.

        Your figures are a red herring here. The statement is "95% of the U.S. population owns a cell phone". You don't get to use the additional phones some individuals have and apply them to the segment that does not have a phone, so a chart counting active lines is useless. Lots of those phones are corporate plans that may not even be owned by an individual person, or will be a secondary line to their own personal phone.

        Think about the very elderly that do not have a cell phone because they missed that technolog

        • So what data do you have that says otherwise? I know in my neighborhood, the kids on each side (all between the ages of 7 and 17) have cellphones. And the retired couple (in their 80s) two houses down have cellphones too - in fact, I helped them get their SONOS system configured for them and they use their phones exclusively for controlling it.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by SeaFox ( 739806 )

            So what data do you have that says otherwise? I know in my neighborhood, the kids on each side (all between the ages of 7 and 17) have cellphones. And the retired couple (in their 80s) two houses down have cellphones too...

            Well, the average age for the start of phone ownership is 10 years [techcrunch.com]. Now, let's look at a population graph [populationpyramid.net]. Oops, we're at 6.1% already just with people under the age of five. That "95%" figure is already bullshit. Even if everyone over the age of 10 owned a cell phone we're only at 87.6% of the population, and we haven't removed the the top end (which is very sparse, I admit) or the scattered people in the middle (poverty, fear of radio waves, etc).

            • The AVERAGE age for getting a phone is 10 years; that means many younger than that get phones (and in your own article it talks about another study putting the average at 6 or 7). But if you want to bitch that 95% is actually 92% or 88% - well, it's still pretty much everyone, and there is VERY little room for growth left.

        • I agree that the number is a red herring, but I do wonder where all those people are that don't have personal cell phones. I don't carry a cell phone myself, but I can't think of a single adult that I know who doesn't. The only people other than myself that I can think of are teenagers in large families and other children that are just too young to have a cell phone.

          Personally I don't have a cell phone because I only spend a few minutes per day where I don't have access to a regular phone and computer. A ce

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by SeaFox ( 739806 )

            I agree that the number is a red herring, but I do wonder where all those people are that don't have personal cell phones. I don't carry a cell phone myself, but I can't think of a single adult that I know who doesn't. The only people other than myself that I can think of are teenagers in large families and other children that are just too young to have a cell phone.

            https://www.populationpyramid.... [populationpyramid.net]

            More than 20% of the population is under 18, it's very, very easy to hit over 5% with what you just said. ;-)

      • That list makes me wonder what people in the Maldives do with their two phones per person.

    • The age distribution would actually agree with it quite well if you consider that pretty much everyone over the age of 7 owns a mobile phone. The under 7s account for 5% of the population currently.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by SeaFox ( 739806 )

        The age distribution would actually agree with it quite well if you consider that pretty much everyone over the age of 7 owns a mobile phone.

        No, it wouldn't. [slashdot.org]

  • The AT&T Tech Channel under the AT&T Archives section has a cool video regarding AMPS service on youtube.com.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • I am not reliant on a cell phone (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I do carry one (when I remember), and find it useful sometimes, but I will never be reliant on it. When they first came into common usage, I started
    refering to them as electronic leashes, and now they are also electronic tracking devices. I don't need that.

    • I finally broke down a couple of years ago and bought a cheap flip Tracfone to carry when I leave the house, in case of emergency, or I might need to make a VERY random call, since it's near IMPOSSIBLE these days to find a pay phone anymore. Sometimes I forget to grab it when walking out the door though.

      To give you some idea how often I actually use it, I buy the 60 minute card(for $20) once every 90 days (I get double minutes because of the model phone I bought). Since the unused minutes "roll over", I cur

  • old guy here (Score:3)

    by speedlaw ( 878924 ) on Monday October 15, 2018 @12:07AM (#57478640) Homepage
    The cell phone showed up when I got a real job...actually when I got my second real job. You could go to lunch. People took messages and you could call them back with no hurt feelings and having digested lunch. You could go on vacation. Calls on vacation were tough to get, especially at the beach or in another country. You could go to sleep. No one would send you a message or call you after hours in 99% of situations. I still get crap from family and friends if I leave my phone in another room or the car. Yes, there are benefits, but the absolute loss of alone time or solitude isn't worth it. Also like most advances, the only benefit was had before the entire US moron population got on the web and then the trash got Samsung smartphones.....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      The cell phone showed up when I got a real job...actually when I got my second real job. You could go to lunch. People took messages and you could call them back with no hurt feelings and having digested lunch. You could go on vacation. Calls on vacation were tough to get, especially at the beach or in another country. You could go to sleep. No one would send you a message or call you after hours in 99% of situations.

      And it's still like that today.

      All you need to do is take control of your life. When you're overseas, use a different SIM card (or different phone entirely). Make it clear to your clients and employers that your time is YOUR time and contacting you in your time is chargeable/subject to overtime.

      When I go overseas, I rarely receive a call unless I'm being sent there by my employer (in which case I'm working, not holidaying).

      Phones are not some time stealing monster, they are just devices like an a

    • Another old guy here. Guess what? You can turn the phones *OFF*. Or put them in do-not-disturb mode. Or even (get this!) just plain *ignore* them when they buzz! Finish your lunch. Relax on vacation. Sleep soundly. *You* are in control of when your phone rings.

      "But other people get annoyed when I do that." Not your problem. Seriously, man. Unless you've undertaken some obligation (such as agreeing to be on-call for work) let them just piss off and leave a message. They need to learn boundaries. Give yo

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] NMT (Nordisk MobilTelefoni or Nordiska MobilTelefoni-gruppen, Nordic Mobile Telephony in English) is the first fully automatic cellular phone system. It was specified by Nordic telecommunications administrations (PTTs) and opened for service on 1 October 1981 as a response to the increasing congestion and heavy requirements of the manual mobile phone networks: ARP (150 MHz) in Finland, MTD (450 MHz) in Sweden and Denmark, and OLT in Norway.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • My boss bought the entire service department the dyna-tac phones to supplement the cell phone since they charged you by the minute, plus, the battery didn't last long. MY first owned phone was the motorola flip phone that had the huge piece that flipped open to reveal the keys. Then I went for the analog Star-Tac, which was SUPER tiny compared to the previous phones, then the digital star-tac, then the V60 and then graduated to the PDA phones until 2010 when I moved up to the smartphone with the HUGE (at th
    • I had a Motorola dyna-tac flip phone in 1991 and a startac as soon as it came out, then a digital startac! those were the days!

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