Your first cell phone?

[steve-in-kville]

Quick little poll. I'd imagine most, if not all forum members had/have a mobile or cellular phone. Things have come a long way, for sure

1- What make/model did you have?

2- Service plan?

3- The year you got it?

[steve-in-kville]

Quick little poll. I'd imagine most, if not all forum members had/have a mobile or cellular phone. Things have come a long way, for sure

1- What make/model did you have?

2- Service plan?

3- The year you got it?

1- Motorola Bag phone. Plugged into the lighter plug.

2- I think it was 30/month for 30 minutes, plus free evenings and weekends?

3- 1995/96

[Josh]

I got a Nokia 5-something in 2000 on AT&T. You know, the one with the snake game.

Paid $60 a month for 350 or 450 minutes which included Canadian calling which seemed absolutely phenomenal at the time… I was used to shelling out 35¢/minute at payphones up there.

[QuietlyListening]

It was an analog and we got it for emergencies- I was on the road at night sometimes for my job when I was on call and then also for our college aged daughter who lived at home and commuted and would be out with friends at night with Campus Crusade and visiting. Don't have a clue what type what plan etc.

[Ken]

Some kind of Nokia candy bar phone.

Got it in 2001 when I got married and finally had someone I needed to coordinate with for errands, child care, etc. since we only had one car. We actually used some sort of instant messaging for most of our daily communications since we both worked in front of computers. I don't even remember what that was....AOL instant messaging? Or maybe it was Yahoo or MSN. I don't even remember.

Plan was some sort of generic voice plan with ACS (Alaska Communications System) which had a cell phone monopoly in Alaska at that time. I don't remember texting or taking photos with a cell phone until many years later.

[Neto]

Not cellular, but satellite. Magellan World Phone. Cost of calls: $2.99 / minute. (My wife's Dad bought it for us, so they could contact us while we were in the village. I don't recall now when we got it, but it was before Y2K2000, because we had it set up for emergency communication to connect with the other branch centers within Brazil. (There was someone with one on each of the three mission centers in Brazil.)
It's in a case about 12" square, and the cover is a detachable antenna. We mounted it on the roof of the house while in the village. We turned it on each evening (as I recall now) for about an hour, in case my wife's folks called. I don't think we ever received a call from any one else.

As far as cellar telephones go, our first was a TracPhone from Walmart. We bought it just for a trip across country, but then we ended up keeping it supplied with service so that our daughter, who was driving to the Christian HS where she & our oldest son were attending, could contact us if necessary. My own first cellular phone was new Dec of 2010, a Samsung model SCH-U840 flip phone, a sort of "case hardened" one. (I still have it, and refer to telephone numbers occasionally, but not often anymore.) Now have a Google Pixel-3, which I got in mid 2020.
What service do you all have? I use Red Pocket - very reasonable.

[Ken]

What service do you all have? I use Red Pocket - very reasonable.

Verizon.

They seem to have by far the best coverage here on the west coast. Tried T-Mobile and couldn't even get a signal at two of the schools where I worked, which were semi-rural but not THAT remote. And AT&T would fade in-and-out at our house which made it a non-starter for my wife who needs rock-solid cell coverage for her job since we don't have a landline. We live in a hilly suburb but it is not anyplace remote. We are within a large metro area.

[Neto]

What service do you all have? I use Red Pocket - very reasonable.

Verizon.

They seem to have by far the best coverage here on the west coast. Tried T-Mobile and couldn't even get a signal at two of the schools where I worked, which were semi-rural but not THAT remote. And AT&T would fade in-and-out at our house which made it a non-starter for my wife who needs rock-solid cell coverage for her job since we don't have a landline. We live in a hilly suburb but it is not anyplace remote. We are within a large metro area.

Red Pocket uses the Verizon network, but if tethering is something you need to do regularly, then it isn't the best, because they do not approve its use. I have done it in emergency situations, like a year ago, when the 'derencho' came through here, and we were w/o telephone (landline) and internet for 4 weeks. I couldn't run a business w/o using a work-around for tethering. (A 10 dollar add-on app that allows the connection. But I would just do the absolute essentials, then disconnect again.) The landline was never fixed - they apparently abandoned this "spur". Ended up getting internet from a cable provider.

I pay annually, and it comes out to around $20.00 / month. Unlimited talk, text, and internet. (I think it just gets slower at some point in monthly usage, but I generally only use the cell phone for talk, text, and increasingly as a camera. So I doubt if I often reach the point where the connection would slow down.)