Did you have a cell phone in 1992? A writer wants to know for his research.

[KittyWampus]

If you didn't have a cellphone did anyone in your family?

So far, I came across a statistic saying about 11 million Americas had cell phones in 92. Doesn't sound like that many. There are about 8 million people in NYC.

Thank you very much in advance.

[elleng]

1. No

[notadmblnd]

2. No

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. no. Nobody I know had one. Are we talking big gigantic ones like this?

[Art_from_Ark]

No.

Got mine in 1998. It's been more of a nuisance and money drain than anything else, but who knows, maybe one day it will be useful for something.

[Tom_Foolery]

No.

[RockaFowler]

4. Nope

Got my first cell phone in 1999

[Mrs. Ted Nancy]

5. Nope

[tnlefty]

6. Yes for safety reasons.

Our first child, born in 1990, was premature, and I had one in 1990 just in case something happened if/when we were away from home in his infancy. I've had a cell phone since.

[Raine]

7. Yes, I did

it was portable but it was big and heavy. At that time it was really expensive but my father got it for me because I was out late hours and he was worried about my safety. I was on the nightowl plan where it was a little cheaper from 7:00 pm to 7:00 am. The carrier was LA Cellular,it was a Motorola. I would still have it but someone stole it around 1995-96. :-(

edit: what I meant about still having it doesn't mean I wouldn't be using it. I would still have it in my possession, cause I keep everything.

[Sonoman]

8. I may have.

I was the first person I knew who had one. It was as big as a briefcase and had a shoulder strap. I thought it was cool as heck, even tho it worked only in metropolitan ares.

I don't know if that was in '92, but it could have been. I do know that GHWB was prez at the time, but I don't know when he left office.

Sonoman

[Daphne08]

9. No, my first one was in 1993.

It was one of those bulky bag phones with an antenna you had to mount on your car. :-)

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. Got mine in 93 or 94

[Tesha]

11. No, but I did in '93; our new-to-us used Audi came with one.

And I had a hand-held about a year or two later.

Tesha

[Blue-Jay]

12. What writer?

[KittyWampus]

26. An aspiring playwright.

[Blue-Jay]

31. Is it you?

[KittyWampus]

33. No, I'm an aspiring mystic

:)

[PotatoChip]

13. No, and still don't

Even if I could get a signal, I'm not sure if I'd bother. Gone this long w/out one. :shrug:

[cali]

79. same with me.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

14. No and nobody I knew did, and I work a job where pager use (now cells) was mandatory.

[caraher]

15. No

I think my father-in-law was the only one I knew who had one (he called it his "shoe phone" in homage to Get Smart). So that's me, 4 siblings, a spouse and three of our four parents without one.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

16. No. No one I knew had one either. nt

[Welibs]

17. I had one. I am married to a Canadian and had just started to work

here. The company I worked for gave us car and cell phones.

Both were like making a phone call with a brick! Hahah.

[Codeine]

18. A friend of mine did.

He's a crazed early adopter of every new technology and was probably on his second or third phone by then. He's also the first person I ever saw send a text message via mobile.

[EFerrari]

19. My mother did. I didn't get one until 93.

[Sienna86]

20. I called it a bag phone

The phone handset was attached by a cord to a bag that I carried in my car and I had to attach an attenna to my car. I was caught in a snow sotrm in Chicago traffic for four hours. That was the motivation for getting one.

[Aerows]

54. Yep I had a big ass bag phone, too

[elfin]

21. No - we did have one car phone

It was provided by my husband's company. Don't know why they thought it was necessary.

He used it to call me when he was on his way home and when he was out looking for our runaway dog to touch base with me at home in case the critter had returned.

Did not get my cell phone until after I became a widow in 1998. Then, just for the car and emergencies. A Tracfone -- $100/year with rollover minutes.

Came in handy when I had a lightning strike on my house, fritzing out all wiring. The insurance company even bought a few more thousand minutes for me.

I use it more now to just use up the prepaid minutes, but not ready to go full cell just yet.

[SoCalNative]

22. Yes

I had one. It was one of these:

[hunter]

40. We had one of those for work

It wasn't any kind of pleasure being the one whose turn it was to carry it. Not that it was any fun looking for a pay phone when your pager went off, but at least a pager was small enough to clip to your belt or put in your purse.

[Raine]

80. That's the kind I had too

it was heavy to carry.

[elocs]

23. I got a Trac Fone in '96 for emergencies while traveling. Still have it.

Currently I use a Straight Talk phone as my only phone for $30/month. I get 1000 minutes and 1000 texts for that and it uses the Verizon network and it works great for me.

[madamesilverspurs]

24. Friend had one.

It was one of those that had its own carry case, big battery thing. He got it for his business, insisted on bringing it into restaurants, meetings, etc.

My nephew had given me a pocket noisemaker, and one of the sounds was that of a ringing phone. So I'd wait for the guy to be across the room, I'd push the button and watch him come running to answer his phone. After about the tenth time (over a period of days) he finally figured out that somebody was messing with him. He packed up his phone, stomped outside, locked the phone in the trunk of his car, and as he was coming back inside I pushed the button.

I can still be a brat when I need to be...


-

[JitterbugPerfume]

25. no

I just got one My kids insisted on it after I got stranded in an airport fit eight hours

[KharmaTrain]

27. Yep...Had A Bag Phone...

I was working at a company that had a special deal set up with the local Cellphone company. IRC, the phone was $250 (but free with a contact...just like today). The air minutes were the killer. I think I had 300 minutes for $50...or something outrageous by todays stats. All I know is that I had to ration the use or I'd quickly use up the 300 and pay 30 cents a minute or more for "overtime". I thought it was a neat thing to have at first but soon learned what a hazzard they could be...paying more attention to the call than the road and also got hit with some high overcharges. I got rid of the phone in '93 and didn't get another one for another 10 years. Even today I use my cellphone sparingly and rarely give out the number to anyone.

[tishaLA]

28. nope. not until 2006

I was a late convert.

[lightningandsnow]

29. I believe my mother did.

If she didn't then, she had one in 1993.

I had a lot of health problems as a baby so she had one for emergencies.

I'm now 19 and more or less healthy. :)

[etherealtruth]

30. I had a pager (for work)

The (now ex)husband had a cell phone.

[Not Me]

32. I got my first one in 1986.

My company paid ($1200), it was installed in my car and the bills averaged $400 a month. It was $35 a month, and $.35 a minute, with extra charges for long distance, and when you left your local area.

And I gotta say, it sure beat a pager/pay phone.

[Hepburn]

34. I believe so...

...I had a car phone that could be taken out of the car and used. I assume that is a cell phone? LOL, it was about the size of a loaf of bread and the cost per call was freaking outrageous!

[sunwyn]

35. Nope and still don't

[Hannah Bell]

36. no. still don't.

hope i will make it to the grave without ever having one.

[Forkboy]

67. Same here.

The last thing I want is people being able to reach me anytime. I don't even answer my land line half the time.

[tritsofme]

37. Does a car phone count?

It was wired into the car, antenna on the outside window.

Probably the best reception of any mobile phone I've had since.

[tnlurker]

38. 1996 or 1997

Work required me to have one...and a beeper since coverage was not that great.

[sixmile]

39. Yes. First phone in 1988

Huge brick with a CB-like antenna. Expensive as hell.

[Motown_Johnny]

41. Not I, but my father had one

big sucker if I remember correctly, looked like a walkie talkie (kinda)

kept it in the car for emergencies

[quaker bill]

42. At the office only

[Enrique]

43. ...

[aikoaiko]

44. My wife had a bag phone. It took me ten more years before I wanted one.

[alsame]

45. No, not until '98. But I knew one person who had a car phone in the

early 90s.

[jtuck004]

46. Friend had a brick, I think it was a Motorola. Was in Oklahoma City.

Had owned it for several years by 1992.

[distantearlywarning]

47. Nope.

But I was on the internet, or at least what passed for the internet back then!

[backscatter712]

48. Nope, couldn't afford one.

They were only starting to become available to mere mortals at that point, but they were still expensive.

I got my first one in 2000, when they were really starting to go mainstream.

My sister's husband had one back in the early 90's - a big bag phone, and he was always complaining about the bill, yelling at anyone who wasted airtime minutes, and you'd better not dare make a call on roaming.

Of course, today, I'm going nuts with my Android smartphone.

[Sabriel]

49. No, I was ridiculing them in 1992

And now I'm one of those people who calls from the store to ask if we need anything else.

Geeez....

[Puzzler]

50. I had one in 93...

... or at least I had the use of one in 93 (I've had the same cell phone number ever since). It was not anything like as big as a "brick phone"... the brick phones were about 4-5 years earlier.

[Shandris]

51. No, and still don't. (n/t)

[bigwillq]

52. No (nt)

[WestHoustonDem]

Got my first one in 94

In 92 my boss had one and it was a car phone. I doubt there were 11 million.

[Aerows]

53. Yes

I had one that was in a bag, and huge, in my car. It was basically a novelty, but yes, I had one.

[MyshkinCommaPrince]

55. No.

I still haven't.

[Goblinmonger]

56. 1993. A huge bag phone

with a GREAT battery.

[Philippine expat]

57. NO and still don't

In 1992 I only know 1 person who had a cell phone now I'm the only person I know who doesn't have one.

[DainBramaged]

58. Yes, my then beloved wife had one because of her job on the road

I got mine in '94. Hers was a huge Mitsubishi, about the size of baby bottle

[BillyJack]

59. No

My first cellular phone was a StarTac that I got in 1998 or 1999. I still have it in the original box :-).

[Gamow]

60. My father had a car phone, kinda a cell phone. nt

[aaaaaa5a]

61. No. I didn't even know what a cell phone was in 1992.

I didn't have a computer either.

[sakabatou]

62. I don't think anyone in my household had a cell

[Angry Dragon]

63. No and No

[BulletproofLandshark]

64. I didn't know ANYONE with a cell in '92.

As I've explained to my niece (who was born in '95) several times, it seemed like only rich people owned them back them. There sure were a lot of people with pagers though. I personally waited until 2007 to get my first cell.

[meow mix]

65. hell no, i had a pager... like everyone lol

beeper power, find a phone!!

[TriMera]

66. No. n/t

[Bubba Kush]

68. I know my parents did.

They were the first on the block to get cell phones. It was a business necessity.

[bullwinkle428]

69. I'm going to say around '94 - I definitely recall it being a bag phone!

:rofl:

Anyone else recall carrying around one of those monstrosities?

[LetTimmySmoke]

70. No

[lpbk2713]

71. Text pager.

Provided by employer. No phone.

[underseasurveyor]

72. Not me but my mom did. nt

[zen_bohemian]

73. my parents had one

they called it a bag phone, it was bascially a car phone that plugged into the car, it was very heavy and bulky, nothing like today's phones.

[conflictgirl]

74. No. I didn't get my first cell phone until 2000. nt

[akbacchus_BC]

75. No, cell phones did not exist then. Why do you ask?

[dipsydoodle]

84. I find that hard to believe

given that we had them in the UK by 1986.

[Drew Richards]

114. Sorry you are incorrect.

I worked in Telco for 20 years.

All of us were assigned Motorolas Monster Dynatacs 1800 or something like that in 1986-87 and then we were upgraded to Motorola monsters in a bag (Awesome battery life) in 1992 that we could carry and slap in our trucks.

Just fyi.

[wickerwoman]

76. No. We had cordless.

I got my first cell phone in 2003 but I was a pretty late adopter.

I think I few people in my high school had pagers in 1992 though. I remember the doctors on ER carried them and that was early nineties.

Might be worth going back and watching some early 90s movies/tv shows to get a better sense.

On edit: I remember going to my uncle's house for Thanksgiving in 1995 and him complaining about all the assholes talking on their cell phones on the commuter bus from New York. So I guess they were pretty widespread among wealthier NYC yuppies by that time.

[blondeatlast]

77. I knew a filthy rich interior decorator in my area who had a big mostrosity

of a "portable" phone.

She was the "Gale": http://wisemanandgale.com/ but please don't mention DU--she's a rolling you-know-what.

[dipsydoodle]

78. Got mine 1987.

Was a fixed armrest 'phone in my Supra.

When they switched from analogue to digital I kept the number - they just inserted an additional digit after the first 0.

I've still got the same number now. :)

[oldhippydude]

81. yes

that was about the time they first started coming down.. think i paid about 500 bucks for the phone (early 90's bucks).. was the infamous brick phone... was driving cab at the time, and was major investment... air time was still an issue in those days, however it increased my earning capacity by about $50 bucks per shift.. one shifts profit paid for the phone for a month so it was good biz..

i was very carefully to not waste air time with calls other than money calls..

[dipsydoodle]

82. I think the first one I had

in that early Supra was about £2000 : not US$'s. By the time I got a new Supra beginning of 1988 they'd come down here to about £1500. I was selling photocopiers in those days. Some friends who'd migrated over to selling mobile phones predicted then that eventually they'd be almost giving them away with packets of Cornflakes....lol.

Company paid for mine and all the calls too. The amount I was earning them was such that they didn't bat an eyelid about getting call bills in @ c. £900 a month which I guess that as about$1600 then.

[SkyDaddy7]

83. My Dad had one...

We drove across the country from California to Georgia & he ran up a $400.00 bill & hardly used it! LOL!

If I am not mistaken he had to enter "roaming codes" depending on where we were in the country...He had several page print out of the various codes. I kept saying that thing is more trouble than it is worth but he had to use it! Pay phones were still everywhere so I did not see the point! LOL!

[Ilsa]

85. No. nt

[Courtesy Flush]

86. No. Not till around 1998

[Bombtrack]

87. My name is Zack Morris and the answer is yes. and if you cross me I will beat you with it like Thor

[tanyev]

88. I didn't get a cell phone until 2002.

Still hardly ever use the blasted thing.

[ThomWV]

89. Yes, but I was using it on a boat as an extra safety device while fishing off shore

The old bag phones had pretty good range. You could make and receive calls up to about 40 miles off shore, which was great for our day-fishing. When everything went digital it was the end of that. The lower power digital phones have very limited range. At any rate the range of the cell phone was actually greater than the range of the VHF radios on the boat. Its a matter of different frequency signals propagating in different ways, and not a matter worth a discussion here, but the bottom line was that because of the range the bag phone was really another safety device in a place where redundancy is a very good thing.

Anyway I had a bag phone that had two phone numbers in it, one a West Virginia number and the other was a North Carolina number. I traveled back and forth about once every two weeks and used the WV number when I was on the road and the NC number once I had arrived and while out on the boat.

[MineralMan]

90. I did. It was a Nokia brick phone.

Huge thing, as cell phones go. I had my choice of that or a bag phone for free from the cell service. They had the first Motorola flip phones, too, but they wanted $$$ for them.

My wife and I bought it to deal with auto emergencies when we were driving our old cars on long trips. We soon discovered that there was no coverage out in the boonies where you'd need to use the phone.

[tabbycat31]

91. no-- I was 12

I think if I were 12 today my parents would not let me have a cellphone (I obviously do now as it's my only phone).

ETA I got my fist cellphone in 2000.

[HappyMe]

92. No.

I have one now, but I rarely use it.

[Matt_in_STL]

93. Nope, not until 1994. n/t

[FormerDittoHead]

94. This is a waste - this isn't a scientific sample - WHY does the writer want to know?

If it's for the brain cancer thing, I was a believer but the fact is that the overall rate of brain cancer hasn't gone up since the days before cell phones.

[KittyWampus]

98. It's a plot device. Is it plausible for a cell phone to enter into the action of the play as it's

written so far.

Doesn't need to be scientific. Just a fair idea of percentages.

[Bunny]

95. I had a big bag phone.

My parents bought it for me because I was a single mom with a brand new baby and they didn't want us stranded on the road somewhere with no way to summon help.

[madmom]

96. nope

[LibDemAlways]

97. No. n/t

[LanternWaste]

99. A work phone...

A work phone...

I used to drive ambulatory patients from local hospitals to the cancer clinic I worked at. I was issued one of those huge, bulky phones (the kind Gordon Gecko used in Wallstreet), and had to carry it in my lab coat all day long. Felt a bit embarrassed by it at the time.

[Flashmann]

100. Nope....

....I did not.I knew only one person,back then,who did...It was a huge bag-phone..The size of a gym bag..

[robdogbucky]

101. I didn't but I bought one for my now wife

for safety and security when she was on the road, needed to get in touch with family, etc. It was a large phone and did not hold a charge well, as the smaller, flip type phones with more efficient batteries had not arrived yet.

I had learned my lesson during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, when standing with 10,000 other people waiting for a ferry to take us across to the East Bay from SF, Embarcadero when the bridges were all put out of commission. BART was down.

The only phone was someone passing around their cell phone (another one of those huge things that didn't hold a charge)throughout the crowd for people that needed to call home. Power was out, phone booths and private land lines were down but the cell phones were all working. That taught me the lesson that the existing land line phone system was not as reliable in an emergency as a cell phone.

rdb

[WilliamPitt]

102. Didn't get one until 2001.

[kick-ass-bob]

103. No, and nor did my wife

or anyone in either of our families (7 people). Now, 6 of those 7 do.

[Blue_Tires]

104. My parents both had car phones at the time (which was still a big thing)

[JesterCS]

105. My Grandfather had a car cell in 92 n/t

[Drew Richards]

106. YEs and still have it.

I had an Old Motorola Bag Phone its in the attic somewhere collecting dust.

[RebelOne]

107. Nope. Didn't know they existed then.

But my sister had a car phone.

[Brother Buzz]

108. No. I was still playing the pager, pay phone, and quarters game

[grahamhgreen]

109. Yes

[Quantess]

110. No.

I thought I was ahead of the curve when I got one in 1999.

[mainer]

111. No. None of the doctors I know had them, either.

In fact, the hospital got one cell phone to be used by whoever was on call, and they'd hand it off to the next doctor. Most of them just used pagers.

[KurtNYC]

112. not me but many of the people I worked for in the late 1980s had

cell phones -- entertainment lawyers in Los Angeles. They would call in from the golf course to check for messages and it sounded like they were in a car wash but they would tell you 'I'm on my cell' just in case you couldn't guess. I think airtime was about $3 / minute.

Some other people who had cell phones in those days:
- Johnnie Cochran
- Robert Novak
- Ted Kennedy
all of whom have now passed with brain tumors on the left side of the brain.

[Wait Wut]

113. Yes.

I had to think about it for awhile, though. I was on the company plan and the phone was friggin enormous.

[onecent]

115. No I didn't...

[JuniperLea]

116. No... but my boss did...

One of those giant gray bricks... and he flaunted it more than used it. The next boss had one as well, and the HR lady had a car phone... attached to the car.

I didn't have one of my own until the late 90's. It cost me $7 a month... I only used it for emergencies because calls were $.50 a minute.

[JimGinPA]

117. Yes

[pinniped]

118. I might have had the Oki 900 around that time.

I've had c-phones since 1989, but luckily never had that Motorola brick.

Rates were .90 cents peak and .45 cents off-peak. Making just a few routine calls, phone bills were easily over $100/month.

[JSK]

119. Hubby and I both got one in 93 (n/t)

[rurallib]

120. may have had one for work. Definitely had a pager.

three pagers I think.