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Mobile phones & texting became much more common earlier in Europe versus the US.

Kon-Peki 3y ago
I worked in mobile infrastructure at Motorola in 2002. The entire world had more advanced mobile systems than the US. We’d be selling/installing our best stuff in Africa & Asia, while American operators just wanted replacement parts for their existing tech. The landline infrastructure in the US was so good, people didn’t want to let go of it. I don’t think people really changed their minds until the iPhone came out.
- bachmeier 3y ago
  > The landline infrastructure in the US was so good, people didn’t want to let go of it. I don’t think people really changed their minds until the iPhone came out. Sorry, but this is simply wrong. I was did some consulting work for a company that had a big pay phone business. I saw their financials. They'd already lost much of their business by the late 1990s due to cellphones. Their main customers by then were low income or had bad credit and thus couldn't get a cell.
  - justsomehnguy 3y ago
    > due to cellphones Or maybe due to cellphones, email, IRC, AOL, ICQ and whatever else were there? It would be kinda strange to "let's meet in 15 minutes at the corner of ... / AFK" and then find a payphone to.. tell exactly that again?
bachmeier 3y ago
It's just a bad article. Mobile phones were almost universal by 2002 in the US. When I was on the job market visiting a university in January 2002, there was someone that still didn't have a cellphone, and it was so rare by that point that it was a topic of discussion. Even in sparsely-populated western North Dakota and South Dakota, most people had a mobile phone by then.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I suppose it depends on what you mean by "had a mobile phone." I had one--probably from sometime in the 90s. But until I got a Treo in 2006, it was something I only used for specific purposes like if I was running an activity and I wanted people to be able to reach me. It wasn't something I carried with me. (But, certainly, by the early 2000s a fair number of people expected others to be immediately reachable by cell.)

I worked in mobile infrastructure at Motorola in 2002. The entire world had more advanced mobile systems than the US. We’d be selling/installing our best stuff in Africa & Asia, while American operators just wanted replacement parts for their existing tech. The landline infrastructure in the US was so good, people didn’t want to let go of it. I don’t think people really changed their minds until the iPhone came out.

bachmeier 3y ago
> The landline infrastructure in the US was so good, people didn’t want to let go of it. I don’t think people really changed their minds until the iPhone came out. Sorry, but this is simply wrong. I was did some consulting work for a company that had a big pay phone business. I saw their financials. They'd already lost much of their business by the late 1990s due to cellphones. Their main customers by then were low income or had bad credit and thus couldn't get a cell.
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  > due to cellphones Or maybe due to cellphones, email, IRC, AOL, ICQ and whatever else were there? It would be kinda strange to "let's meet in 15 minutes at the corner of ... / AFK" and then find a payphone to.. tell exactly that again?

bachmeier 3y ago

It's just a bad article. Mobile phones were almost universal by 2002 in the US. When I was on the job market visiting a university in January 2002, there was someone that still didn't have a cellphone, and it was so rare by that point that it was a topic of discussion. Even in sparsely-populated western North Dakota and South Dakota, most people had a mobile phone by then.

ghaff 3y ago
I suppose it depends on what you mean by "had a mobile phone." I had one--probably from sometime in the 90s. But until I got a Treo in 2006, it was something I only used for specific purposes like if I was running an activity and I wanted people to be able to reach me. It wasn't something I carried with me. (But, certainly, by the early 2000s a fair number of people expected others to be immediately reachable by cell.)