Cellular Timeline

Looking back, it’s amazing how cellular technology has changed over the years.

Enter the Pager

I started out getting a pager. Not sure why I needed one but it was all of the rage. It was great…it had a new feed that would deliver sound byte stories in:

• National News
• Sports
• Entertainment

Also, each pager had an email address. I would set up my Elm account to auto-forward all of my email to my pager. I don’t recall really ever using the numeric only paging.

A few years later, I received a dedicated work pager. Then, we had an “on-call” pager. Once a month, I would have 3 pagers all lined up on my batman utility belt.

First Phone

Eventually, the on-call pager turned into an on-call cell phone. Following suite, I got a dedicated cell phone…but kept the pager for data.

I upgraded once or twice but everything was unremarkable. Phones eventually got data and photo capability. Both were absolutely awful.

Despite how cool X-Files and their flagrant use of cell phones, using those phones were rare and for “emergency” only. They were expensive and paid for by the company. Every minute added up.

Minutes became gamified:

• Nights and weekends
• Circle of friends
• Rollover

Push to Talk

Sprint entered as a a disruptor…with the novel push to talk. While that seem very old-school, like a walkie-talkie, those “minutes” were “unlimited”. Our team all got them. I got one for my wife and several of our friends had them. It was our first flip phone.

Sprint ran its course with us. Had a a few phones along the way but nothing memorable. We totally skipped the Blackberry.

iPhone

Right after my youngest was born (1 week or so), we upgraded to iPhone 3GS on the ATT network. The iPhone immediately became the best friend of a nursing mom who only had one arm free at any given time.

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Over the next years, we have gone through many iPhones. In addition, we added a Microcell to handle the lack of service in the basement.

Lack of Coverage = Must Change

For the most part, ATT has been a decent vendor. Price point wasn’t too bad…customer service ok.

As life changed for us, we noticed more and more spots with limited or no coverage. We would dutifully report them with no identifiable improvements.

Most notably, we had limited bars at our house and NO bars at Perfect North. That became a problem with my son becoming an avid skier. No coverage = no Life 360 and radio silence.

The Cutover

I got an estimate from Verizon for about $250/month with 4 new iPhones and 5 lines, with usual unlimited data, etc. I agreed and it was very stressful:

• In store sales reps ordered part of my plan “online” vs. in story to “maximize” my deal
• Had to unlock my current (retained) iPhone from ATT
• Spent 5 hours or so in the store, multiple trips
• First bill was $700 but was kindly told that the second bill will be “correct”
• All sorts of rebates

Overall, the store guys were helpful but the overall is very overwhelming. But on the flip side, we now have coverage. Jury is still out if my bill gets corrected and all of my rebates come in.