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September 2 2008 - 2:22 pm EDT | RCR Wireless News
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RCR Wireless News is planning to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the first cellular phone call in its Oct. 13 edition. As such, we want your memories of the last 25 years of wireless. Through the years, the RCR Wireless News editorial staff has been treated to many personal stories about the industry: whether it’s a funny story about buying a nonwireline license in the early days of cellular, or a blueprint drawn on a napkin that spawned a multimillion-dollar business or a maverick who has become an industry icon.
Now it’s time to share them with your wireless colleagues.
Look online at RCRWireless.com/cell25blog for an upcoming blog to post your memories or e-mail them to Editor.RCRWireless@crain.com if you prefer. We’ll feature some of the posts in our print issue, and you can view all of them online.
September 28, 2008 11:25 pm
After retiring with 21 years in telecommunications in the USAF, I was working for a nationwide paging company in Dallas TX. All employees had pagers with voice mail, and many had cell phones (some company provided) to answer their pages. Equipment manufacturers sent candidate products to be evaluated for purchase. Candidate pagers were tested in an office on the top floor of the corporate headquarters two doors down from a paging transmitter.
September 3, 2008 04:10 pm
I remember my first mobile phone in 1992, when my husband's company was invited to be a distributor. It was the size of Maxwell Smart's Shoe Phone and had a two hour battery life -- on standby. I never knew what the phone number was -- nobody ever called it -- and it was soon relegated to the "nice idea but not-ready-for-prime-time" bin.
September 3, 2008 06:00 am
Covering the wireless industry for longer than I care to admit, I've heard a lot of great stories. But my favorite memory has to be hearing former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton speak at CTIA last year.I'm not a political groupie by any means, butI got caught up in the moment standing body-to-body in the the packed hall, watching hundreds of attendees put their camera phones up in the air to take pics of the presidents. The presidents gave two very different speeches -- but each was charming and profound. (The Berlin Wall fell because TV broadcast signals don't pay attention to artificial borders so East Berliners saw TV commercials from the West!)I was proud to be part of an industry that can change the world.When the show was over, I returned to Denver, where my father-in-law was in the hospital. He would't get out. He was a huge Bush fan so as I recounted to him all of the highlights of both speeches, our family got to forget everything else for an hour and talk about two pretty fascinating men and a pretty cool industry.