Quick Question

[athersgeo]

For the Americans (in particular) on my list: How common were cell phones in the middle/late 1990s?

I know how common they were here (for one thing, I can remember getting very ratty with someone who used to leave me to look after his phone who expected me to answer it and take messages, and that was in late 1998), but I have this suspicion that they weren't as prevelant in the USA as they were here. Am I right?

Comments

[aspartaimee.livejournal.com]

lots of businesses and business people had cellphones in the mid 90s, but i didn't get one of my own until '97.

[itsbuttery.livejournal.com]

As aspartaimee mentioned, they seemed to be well-used among business people, in my area at least, but that was about it. I knew all of one person prior to 98 that owned a cellphone for personal usage, and it was a horridly bulky thing that was basically like a house phone that plugged into a car's cigarette lighter for power.

[germankitty]

Obviously not American here, but just a bit of info that might still help: I bought the first cellphone for Rainer in 1999. Pre-paid made it slightly more expensive, but it was the size of an average TV remote (about 2" shorter than the SKY remote) and cost around 150 quid (today's money). And the earlier ones were even bulkier.

So it wasn't that easy to carry them around (and out of view) as it is today, and they certainly weren't very affordable. And if the US was/is worse than Europe ...

[cmar-wingnut.livejournal.com]

I'd chime in with the others here and say they were mostly for business use in the mid '90s, and became popular among the ordinary folk in late '90s/very early 2000s. By 2001 they were very widespread.