Do you remember when you got your first cell phone?

Yes. I don’t remember what year, but I do remember that it was one of those brick phones where you carried the battery pack in a over-the-shoulder carrier and only had the receiver in your hand.

My first phone was with Pacific Telesis(part of PacTel) which became Airtouch which ultimately became Verizon.

What I do remember was that my first cell phone number was xxx-xxx-6666. I chose it because it was easy to remember. I had it for about ten years, until I moved out of state. (this was in the days before you could port phones from one carrier to another).

It was around the year 2000 or very early in 2001. I was going out with a guy who worked for a company that maintained and put up cell towers, and he got it for me. They were just getting popular. I was in my early 30’s.

Maybe around 2004? I was a hold out, I admit. And I kept my home phone until about 2008.

@KNOWITALL I still have my home phone.

I went to work for Cell One in 1997. They provided cell phones. They were fun. I was in the McDs drive through once. I had already placed my order when one of the kids wanted to ad something….so I just called the restaurant.
I kept my landlines phone until 2008 or so….then canceled it and ported my landline number (which hundreds of kids had memorized) to my cell.
I have had the same number since 1995.
My daughter drove to Washington State once. I put a bag phone in the car and had the CellOne techs track her progress over the 3 days it took her to get there.

My very first portable phone (before cells) was in 1995 & it was a bag phone. It was very heavy so I didn’t carry it with me all the time!!! It stayed in my car most of the time so I would have it…just in case I had an emergency. It was almost like carrying a 2nd purse & extremely inconvenient!!! My boyfriend, at the time, worried about somebody hitting me over the head in order to steal my phone. It wasn’t long after that when cells came into being & I gladly switched out my bag phone for a more convenient cell!!!

@chyna As cheap as they are now, I get that. I still have many friends who choose to keep a home phone for the reliability. All we ever got on the home phone were solicitations and political calls, I was so glad to get rid of it.

I have a home phone using VOIP, average cost $6.75/month. Worth it for the backup.

It was in 2005. I was 13 and in 8th grade. It was a silver Motorola flip phone. I remember I thought it was really cool, especially when I discovered T9. My parents gave me and my brother the same phone. Initially they said it was only for emergencies or to contact them but that lasted about five minutes.

1992. It was a brick phone.

I have a cell phone???

@elbanditoroso I have the same, but mine is less than $5/month. I use Ooma which is a VOIP. I purchased the telo box 10 years ago for $99 & I only have to pay the taxes on the service. When I first signed up with them, I was paying $3/month. I can block any incoming number & the Ooma community reports scam numbers & those numbers are automatically blocked without any further action from me. I can also forward that number to any other number I want, so I keep that umber forwarded to my cell which is very convenient. They tried to convince me to buy their super-duper phone for around $150 but I had already learned that my current phone would work with their system. ONLY problem was getting my fax to work with their system. Anyway, nobody uses a fax anymore so that problem took care of itself!!! At the time I got this system, AT&T was charging me $88/month. You can do the math I’m saving over $80/month & I’m taking my home phone with me everywhere I go. I have NO hesitation to blocking any scam number, so my home phone seldom rings anymore; but for $5/month, I’m NOT breaking the bank!!! IF I ever move, I unplug the box at the old house & plug it back in at the new house & my number stays the same. After I got out of the hospital, I stayed with my brother for almost a month & I never missed a call due to the forwarding. You’re NOT listed in any phone book but you can be located by an online search. IF you complain, they will fix that for you. Plus they report your phone number to the local 911 system , so IF you call 911, they immediately have your address pop up!!!

October 8, 1997 it was a Nokia 232 woodgrain. Bought it on sale at RadioShack; phone service was by Bell Atlantic Mobile now Verizon Wireless (got a special monthly rate through the company where I worked). I bought it because my son and DIL were expecting and I was going out of state on a business trip. My granddaughter was born while I was flying back from Colorado.

Still have same number and a corporate discount for monthly rate and all accessories I buy at Verizon Wireless.

@Tropical_Willie: My job offers 19% discount on rate and products for Verizon.

It was around 98–99 and it was a pay and talk phone and had it for about 6years when my truck was broke into and it was stolen,got another pay and talk had it for awhile then went to a month to month plan that I could talk nation wide 24/7.
Oh and it was a samsung,second was a LG third was a cool pad all flip phones to this day.

Mid 1990s. It was a Motorola flip phone about the size of cordless home phone. I think I may have dropped the service after a year or so because I didn’t use it much – I had home and work phones with voice mail.

I bought one again when I move across country in 2000. That was a nifty Motorola Startac. I miss having a battery that lasted a week. I’ve had mobiles ever since.

@Call_Me_Jay: My first cell was a Startac. I liked it a lot.

Startacs had a problem with the wires running through the flip part. All the flipping would break them.
But it was the coolest phone on the market then.

My slider phone was great, still my favorite ‘style’ to this day.
But I mostly text anyway, so the slide-out keypad was perfect for me.

(This was before digital came to the country! I remember the first texts.)

Hasn’t happened.

The good thing about a clamshell phone like Startac is there was never any butt dialing.

I got my first cell phone when I went to high school in the late 00’s. It was a Sidekick or something like it. The big surprise was when you slid that middle part up and revealed the keyboard. Phone keyboards were the biggest thing as texting was getting popular – no more pressing 7 four times to get the letter “s”.