And good riddance!
As of this President’s Family Day our friends in the US and A will no longer have nationwide analog cellular service, and “me too” Canada will likely follow suit.
For those of you too young to remember, it’s worth reflecting on just how far mobile technology has progressed in just over a decade. Pardon me while I adjust my bifocals and lean back in my rocking chair…
My first-ever handset was an extravagant birthday gift that ended up being more of a burden than anything else. Even though it was a Nokia (I can’t for the life of me remember the model number) I never used it thanks to Bell Mobility’s prohibitive airtime costs, yet after it was stolen, replaced and then recovered I somehow ended up with two!
Sometime in 1999 I upgraded to the RAZR of its day, the Moto StarTAC seen here. Its bleeding-edge features included a two-line LED screen and a (more or less) unbendable antenna. But by that summer I was trialling my first CDMA phone with Bell, then moved quickly over to clearNET before settling down with Fido and GSM in early 2000.
I did have to endure Bell Mobility’s AMPS network a few more times, though — on tour in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, at the family cottage, and anywhere else Fido hadn’t rolled out their network to yet. For these occasions I strapped a montrous analog sled onto the back of my trusty Nokia 5190, thereby giving up all rights to text messaging and call display.
What I’ll miss: The cheap thrill of reacquiring a digital signal just north of Orangeville on Highway 10, letting me know I was on my way back to civilization.
And not so much: Just about everything else.
Filed under: Mobile | Tagged: Bell Canada, Fido, Requiem, Telus Mobility
AC:
I worked for Radio Shack back in the 90’s, and we sold two models, the brick type and for those who had to leave the city, one of those boxes with the separate headset. Later, we got a smaller brick which sold better. Customers could go with Bell Cellular (they wisely changed all those L sounds to Bell Mobility later on) and another provider — I can’t remember which one because we never sold anything for them (Bell’s map had better coverage).
Wonder how many of those bricks or big box phones are still out there?
Ed