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According to [1] (which might be incomplete, IDK) cell phone sales went from 100 million per year in 1997 to 400 million per year in 2000. Subsequently, sales r

According to [1] (which might be incomplete, IDK) cell phone sales went from 100 million per year in 1997 to 400 million per year in 2000. Subsequently, sales rose to 1.5 billion per year. So when talking about how many people have cell phones, the difference between "mid 90s" and "late 90s" makes a big difference :) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_mobile_phones#Annual_sales_by_manufacturer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_mobile_ph...

vidarh 3y ago
Indeed, in Norway for example, the tipping point was ~1995: Suddenly the competition had heated up enough that there were "free" phones with contract, and "everyone" got one - in absolute numbers they were still not everywhere, but the rate of increase was dramatic, and you'd go from not knowing anyone with a cellphone (me in '94 - literally zero people) to a large number having one by the summer of '95. Other countries will have different specific times when this happened, but my impression is that cell phones largely took off in a lot of countries in the same way, because competition and high prices for spectrum meant the large telcos suddenly had a reason to poor vast amounts of cash into pushing cellphones almost "overnight", and suddenly even if you didn't have one yourself you'd at least know enough people that it wasn't anything unusual any more. I'm 48. While I've seen many technical changes, and been part of e.g. driving internet adoption (the company I worked at in '95 was an internet service provide I co-founded, and triggered a price war on internet access in Norway with, that we soundly lost but at least it helped significantly change the market), but none of those changes - including the internet adoption - had such extremely rapid, very visible, effect on society in such a short period of time (I think pervasive internet access has probably made a bigger difference in the long run, but of course part of that was also enabled by cellphones, but it took longer for it to shape things as visibly)
ghaff 3y ago
I had cell phones from sometime in the probably late 90s but they were only used for specific purposes like if I were meeting up with someone and I wanted them to be able to reach me. I didn't really start using cell phones until I got a Treo in 2006 and then an iPhone maybe a few years later.

vidarh 3y ago

Indeed, in Norway for example, the tipping point was ~1995: Suddenly the competition had heated up enough that there were "free" phones with contract, and "everyone" got one - in absolute numbers they were still not everywhere, but the rate of increase was dramatic, and you'd go from not knowing anyone with a cellphone (me in '94 - literally zero people) to a large number having one by the summer of '95. Other countries will have different specific times when this happened, but my impression is that cell phones largely took off in a lot of countries in the same way, because competition and high prices for spectrum meant the large telcos suddenly had a reason to poor vast amounts of cash into pushing cellphones almost "overnight", and suddenly even if you didn't have one yourself you'd at least know enough people that it wasn't anything unusual any more. I'm 48. While I've seen many technical changes, and been part of e.g. driving internet adoption (the company I worked at in '95 was an internet service provide I co-founded, and triggered a price war on internet access in Norway with, that we soundly lost but at least it helped significantly change the market), but none of those changes - including the internet adoption - had such extremely rapid, very visible, effect on society in such a short period of time (I think pervasive internet access has probably made a bigger difference in the long run, but of course part of that was also enabled by cellphones, but it took longer for it to shape things as visibly)

ghaff 3y ago

I had cell phones from sometime in the probably late 90s but they were only used for specific purposes like if I were meeting up with someone and I wanted them to be able to reach me. I didn't really start using cell phones until I got a Treo in 2006 and then an iPhone maybe a few years later.