It might be a holdover from "car phones", where incoming calls were charged for. Very few had them and it could be assumed that the owner had enough cash to pay

It might be a holdover from "car phones", where incoming calls were charged for. Very few had them and it could be assumed that the owner had enough cash to pay for the privilege. IIRC the US had some version of cell phones before e.g. Europe, so probably kept the same business models. The rest of the world was able to rethink the model and with the benefits of hindsight, created cell-specific phone numbers and were able to charge callers rather than phone owners the extra portion.