When Did You Buy Your First Mobile/cell Phone ?

[LaoPo]

When did YOU buy your first Mobile/Cell Phone ?

There are so many phones that recycling them is a problem

Interesting Future !

Mobile phone technology turns 20

GSM FACTS

China has 445 million GSM customers

There are 2.5 billion GSM connections worldwide

64% of mobile users are in emerging markets

About seven billion text messages are sent every day

Source: GSM Association

The technology behind the mobile phone is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

On 7 September 1987, 15 phone firms signed an agreement to build mobile networks based on the Global System for Mobile (GSM) Communications.

According to the GSM Association there are more than 2.5 billion accounts that use this mobile phone technology.

Adoption of the technology shows no signs of slowing down with many developing nations becoming keen users of mobile handsets.

Future phones

Robert Conway, head of the GSM Association, said the memorandum of understanding signed in 1987 is widely seen as the moment when the global mobile industry got under way.

Although work on the GSM technical specifications began earlier, the agreement signed in 1987 committed those operators to building networks based upon it.

"There's no doubt that at the time of the agreement in 1987 no one had an idea of the explosive capabilities in terms of growth that would happen after the GSM standard was agreed," he said.

Since then, he said, the numbers of people using GSM mobiles has always outstripped the predictions.

Once the preserve of the well off, mobiles were now "the everyday gadget that's essential to people's lives," he said.

In the UK there are now more mobiles than people according to Ofcom statistics which reveal that, at the end of 2006, for every 100 Britons there are 116.6 mobile connections.

Figures from the GSM Association show it took 12 years for the first billion mobile connections to be made but only 30 months for the figure to reach two billion.

"In the developing world they are becoming absolutely indispensable," said Mr Conway.

This was because handsets were now cheap and mobile networks much less expensive to set up than the fixed alternatives.

But getting mobiles in to the hands of billions of people was just the start, said Mr Conway.

"The technology is a gravitational force that brings in to its orbit a huge amount of innovators," he said.

In the future, he suggested, high-speed networks would be ubiquitous adding the intelligence of mobiles to anything and everything.

"The technology will be in the fabric of your clothing, your shoes, in appliances, in your car," he said.

For instance, he said, the ubiquity of mobile technology could revolutionise healthcare and see people wearing monitors that gather and transmit information about vital signs.

Phones too could change radically in the future.

"You'll pull them out of your pocket and they'll look like a map but unfold like a screen," said Mr Conway. "We're now on the verge of another wave and that's going to be stimulated by mobile broadband."

Note:

I noticed the first 'handy' mobiles on a large scale in Hong Kong. Lots of -business- people were already using them around the 90's at a time they were not so common yet in Europe. In fact you saw signs in European restaurants where it was forbidden to use a mobile phone whilst at the same time in a Hong Kong restaurant you could see 4 or more people at a table and ALL of them using their mobiles during their meal

I think it was 1990/1991 when I bought my first one and I remember the people and even family around me who said I was 'crazy' and that there was 'no need' for one...

How different it is today!

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6983869.stm

LaoPo

[jumnien]

I bought my first cell phone 9 years ago when I came to Thailand. Before that, in the US, the company bought it. It was so expensive to use that I only made calls to tell them I was too hung over to come to work.

[think_too_mut]

Never bought one, work has been supplying them since 1993.

In Tokyo, usage of mobile phones (to talk) in restaurants and on trains is rare. Trains have signs and announcements to switch it to silent (they call it "manner") mode.

However - you can see many people on the trains (60-70%) operating mobiles - they are reading books (special edition for mobiles), watch TV series (3-4 minutes per episode, just for mobiles) or surf the Internet.

Airport bus plays an announcement "please switch of your phone to manner mode and refrain from talking as it may annoy your neighbors".

Since there is no reception in many restaurants, I guess they have installed a jammer.

Edited September 10, 2007 by think_too_mut

[PeaceBlondie]

I was a late bloomer to mobiles (or as we call them in Texas cell phones). It's a long story, but the only way I could call somebody more closeted than I was, was to get a mobile, and it was way too expensive for a single father with three kids at home. It was late 1997, and cost about $50 or $80 every month. But the providers lied like a Mafioso under oath, so that one's monthly calling plan might go overtime and cost an additional $121.89. My first unit broke and when I took it back (it was only a year old), the shop said it was a dinosaur, just replace it.

Now I have a heavy, big multi-purpose hand-held everything-in-one that would take a Bluetooth if I wanted. I seldom use the microwave oven in my cell phone except for popcorn, and I think there are hair clippers or toothbrushes in there somewhere. The battery's about to go dead and will cost as much as the battery in my sport-bike.

I wonder how we lived before mobiles. Imagine Thailand when only one family in ten had a land line.

[cdnvic]

I think it was 1991. Doubled as a hammer.

[JBL]

My 1st unit was in 91 and it was a nice bag phone and if I remember it had space for 99 names/numbers for contacts

[LaoPo]

I wonder how we lived before mobiles.

We just did, didn't we?

I remember my first time in Thailand and arrived on Phuket and phoned back home thru the radio-phone connection from the Patong Beach Hotel...."Hello, can you hear me - OVER..." She kept on talking....she still is

Those were the days....not.

LaoPo

[Prakanong]

I first used one through a job back in 1988 - a big bloody brick it aswith about 20 minutes total call time if I remember correctly.

Never had one for regular personal use till I joned Motorola in 96 and first time I bought one for myself was in 2000

Since then I have had 12+ which is a bit silly.

[TheWalkingMan]

I stumbled across a Polo Match in Hawaii back in 1985 or 86 and there was a guy using one of those briefcase phones. I was totally wow'd by it. It looked like something from a movie.

I think I bought my first cell phone in 2002. I spoke to the salesperson for about 90 minutes, as I had no clue about SIM cards, GSM etc. After our chat, I picked the cheapest one on display (Sony Ericsson T100). Hey, technology changes rapidly and I just wanted to get my feet wet.

TheWalkingMan

[djinn]

First mobile in 1991 payed by company.(I was thw boss ).Was an Ericsson .So big and heavy that I only used it in the company car.I lived 100 km from office so I was phoning to customers in the traffic jams (with handfree set )

My first personal mobile was in 2001.My mistress was a married woman and she wanted to contact me as soon as hubby went out

[wolfmanjack]

O do not remember when it was but the first mobile phone that i bought was similar to the radios the army used in the Vietnam war. It had a bag with a shoulder strap. The receiver and the battery with an antennae sticking out the main part of the bag and the handset was stuck in a pouch on the side with a cord running to the main unit. Not quite the briefcase case phone but close to it.

[Prakanong]

O do not remember when it was but the first mobile phone that i bought was similar to the radios the army used in the Vietnam war. It had a bag with a shoulder strap. The receiver and the battery with an antennae sticking out the main part of the bag and the handset was stuck in a pouch on the side with a cord running to the main unit. Not quite the briefcase case phone but close to it.

Thats the one I used in 1988 - when I went to Motorola to work I found out they called it "The Brick"

[Gary A]

I bought my first one in Thailand in late 1992. I think it was on a 470 network. It was a Motorola and the handset was attached with a cord to a battery pack. The battery pack was much bigger than a motorcycle battery. It WAS expensive and also VERY expensive to use. It was either that phone or no phone. Landlines were just not available in that area of Bangkok.

[kayo]

My first was a motorola, when I left my parental home and moved back to England, in 95/96

t'wasn't the smalles, nor the largest. It would probably outlast anything built today though.

I think it looked a little bit like this one, except I'm pretty sure the bottom flipped out, to speak into:

[chinthee]

I think it was 1991. Doubled as a hammer.

There is a shop at MBK that still has stacks of those "motorola bricks" for sale, I guess as collectibles.

The batteries used to really get hot after long talks.

[monty]

The batteries on these bricks lasted only a few hours!

If not too much talk time, you could make home after work just when the battery died, after leaving in the morning with a fully charged one!

Having a charged spare battery was essential for heavy users!

Had one of those early 90's, on the 800 Mhz analog mobile net in Thailand...

[billd766]

I got my first one working for Vodafone back in 1987 and that was abrick and a half. It weighed about 2 1/2 kg and 2 of that was the battery. I went to Motorola in 1988 and worked on analogue until 1993 when I transferred to GSM.

I quit Motorola in 1999 to go contracting and now for my sins I am working on Ericsson in Papua New Guinea.

[Carmine6]

1990. Motorola car phone with 3 watts of power. $25/month service with no included time and $0.45 per minute.

[Juzrelax]

Got my first one in 1998 when I was in year 8 or 9 at high school. It was an Ericsson which worked occasionaly. The silly thing was that being a student I could never afford to by credit to use the phone.....I looked cool though

[colino]

i remember my mate walking in the pub dragging this bloody great black box across the floor , taking two hands to lift it up onto the bar and saying (out of breath) hey look iv got a mobile phone

[RKASA]

1993 got an ericson free with one year service plan.  29.95 a month 30 minutes and 0.30 a minute over the 30.  Battery was dead in two months had to keep it plugged into the truck.  Plan got better every year and I used it for 4 years like that.

[batami]

1986 or 87 - with a car kit - problem was to fit the phone into to car kit took 15 minutes and a load of sweat. it never worked. the phone weighed a ton. battery life was as shorter than any of Duracell bunny's competition. and the only place i could get a signal was sitting on the roof of my garage!! never been without one since -- which is a bloody sad admission!!