|
25 years ago, on Oct. 13, 1983, the first sales call from a cell
phone. Bob Barnett, president of Ameritech, called a nephew of Alexander
Graham Bell using the Motorola DynaTAC phone, called a "brick" because
of its large size.
For richs
The brick weighed more than 2.5 pounds,
was not very portable. And it was expensive, selling at about $ 3.995.
The cell phone service in those days was too expensive, at $ 50 for one
month of service, plus 40 cents per minute in peak hours and 24 cents a
minute in the regular hours.
Cell phones in those days were for the rich. Today, cell phones are an
essential part of our culture. Much of this has to do with the low
prices of the phones and service plans.
Now even the advanced devices like the iPhone will be sold with a
subsidy of $ 200. This is an amazingly cheap price, given the advanced
functionality of the phone, compared to the "brick" of almost $
4000-80s.
What a difference 25 years make. In 1984, one year after the Ameritech
Mobile launch its service, the company had about 12,000 subscribers.
Today, AT & T, the largest mobile operator in the United States has 73
million customers. In June, there were about 262 million mobile
subscribers in this country, or about 84% of the population, according
to the CTIA.
Cell phones have come to be so present in
modern society that almost half of all children between the ages of 8
and 12 years owns one, according to a study by Nielsen market.
Cell phones are also replacing the existing home phone, and something
more: They take pictures, play music, surf the Internet and send text
messages. A recent study indicates that most Americans now write text
which speaks for cell phones.
Of course, sending text messages instead of talking seems to be a
generational phenomenon with teenagers. People aged 45 or over still
tends to speak on the phone rather than send texts.
To help provide more growth for the industry, carriers have invested
billions of dollars to build new, faster networks. These 3G wireless
networks are used by carriers today to provide Web browsing, e-mail,
view of the TV, and the service of the transfer of music that some
customers enjoy today.
The next challenge for operators is to build faster networks to continue
with the growing demand for more data services on mobile phones. Sprint
Nextel is launching the first market using its 4G broadband network that
uses a technology called WiMax.
The first city with this service will be Baltimore but is not expected
to develop a national 4G wireless network through at least 2011.
With these new networks in place and more cool phones for sale, it is
difficult to imagine what it might bring the 25 coming years |
