Friday, October 17, 2008
Happy 25th to the Cell Phone.
Today when my wife can't find her phone buried under all the junk in her purse she has our 8-year-old call it from his.
The first commercial cellphone call in the United States was made 25 years ago this week: Bob Barnett, then president of Ameritech Mobile Communications, called from a Chrysler convertible at Soldier Field in Chicago, to the grandson of Alexander Graham Bell, who was in Berlin, Germany.That $3,995 was worth $8,534 in 2008 dollars. Calls back then were like $10 a minute too.
The first cellphone on the market, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x, weighed 28 ounces (thus its nickname, "the brick") and cost $3,995.
There are now more than 262 million wireless users in the country. [NY Post]
Today when my wife can't find her phone buried under all the junk in her purse she has our 8-year-old call it from his.
