Phil Brewer's Blog

Chapter 2

When mobile phones first made their appearance, they were incredibly large, bulky and expensive!   Truth be told, they really didn’t perform very well. But the initial owners had become proponents and advocated how easy it was to check on things, people and events.

However, you almost needed an extra person to help you carry the device. It had two briefcase-sized packs. One case had the traditional receiver hook, with a wire attaching it to the base unit. It in turn had a wire attaching it to a very large, briefcase-sized battery. And size didn’t matter. It still would only work for about 30  to 40 minutes of talk time before it became in need of charging.

Were you around for the first days of the cell phone? First, there were car phones and separate from those were mobile phone, or mobile, for short. The car phone had an initial, but short lived advantage.  It could use the automobile as its charging spot, and was hard wired in, so it could also use the car for its send and receive base.

It soon gave way to a more mobile version, due to the fact that people no longer needed to stay attached. Batteries improved just enough that you could actually carry the device in your one hand, without a backpack!  They were becoming personal devices. Instead of calling a place, you now called a person. This technology seems in retrospect to have happened very quickly.

Many people began to abandon their long distance home packages. This was a striking change. The house budget could easily be blown by one call to a friend or relative outside your calling area. Depending on where, and the time of day, you could be sunk financially. The cell phone took that away, and for a time replaced it.

The enterprising companies quickly competed here as well. Many factors have contributed to making this one of the biggest and quickest shifts of human history, as it concerns what is sometimes termed a power wave.