Cheaper today than in 2009 !!!

[Evans Electric]

While in the loft digging out  Christmas tree  etc    I see  the  bundles of accounts we have to keep for at least 7 yrs  .  Top one  is  2008  to 2009 so fetched it down for disposal .  

Noticed  the cellphone bills from TMobile    , I'm paying  half  that  these days.      

 

[Murdoch]

That's not a huge surprise.

In 2008 lots of people had mobiles (unlike 1998 where it was the few), these days how many people don't have mobiles? The big companies had started to re-coup the costs of installing the infrastructure. As more providers offered deals to get new customers, prices had to get more competitive ...........

And a large number of mobile users these days are on SIM only contracts too....

If I remember correctly my first mobile in 1999 (for personal use) cost me about £14 per month inc the basic handset with 1 hour included, then the costs per minute were piled on. £14 pounds in 1999 wasn't cheap

 

[ProDave]

Mobile call costs have dropped dramatically.  When I first had one, it was really for emergency use, I rarely made a call, the costs were so high.

Now I pay £5 per month for my mobile, not unlimited calls but all I need. I now make all my calls on the mobile and hardly ever use the landline, that is now just too expensive for calls.

 

[binky]

Amixture of competition and I think the EU had something to do with pushing costs down, especially for roaming charges.

 

[Tony S]

My first mobile was in the 90’s, calls cost a small fortune. Someone calling you paid a premium. BT landline call forwarding was daylight robbery.

Back then plant maintenance electricians didn’t normally carry a mobile and filofax but I was running two businesses on the side. My big mistake was letting the company know my phone number, I couldn’t escape anywhere!

 

[Geoff1946]

My first mobile was in the 90’s, calls cost a small fortune. Someone calling you paid a premium. BT landline call forwarding was daylight robbery.

Back then plant maintenance electricians didn’t normally carry a mobile and filofax but I was running two businesses on the side. My big mistake was letting the company know my phone number, I couldn’t escape anywhere!

If you hadn't admitted to your phone you would probably have been issued a pager. At least that's the system the company I was with used.

 

[Tony S]

They even had the phone numbers of the pubs I drank in!

 

[UNG]

I got my first brick back in 1987 the cost was just over £900 the monthly airtime cost £25 and calls were 25p/min peak and 12p/min off peak

Moving on to the mid 90's and the digital cell phones, my mobile had 3 numbers voice, fax and data the airtime and calls were the same price for voice and fax and the data charges were £4 for the first MB and £2/MB after that. Back in 2000 depending on where I was working some months the monthly bill would hit £120 - £140 with calls and data

The last 10 years have certainly become massively cheaper especially the data which is now in the GB's rather than MB's. I now pay about the same as  my monthly airtime cost in 1987 and get unlimited minutes and texts with 12GB of data and the personal communication device on a 2 year contract. For something that does so much more than they originally did it certainly demonstrates how the economies of scale  brings down the cost

I still have my first mobile phone and as an antique it has increased in value in recent years although it is still along way from reaching it's original purchase price although the costs were high back then it certainly changed the way I worked even if customers complained about the 36p/min BT charged to call my mobile you soon realised how much of a pain a radio pager was especially trying to find one of BT's toilets that was working to return a call

 

[Evans Electric]

Pagers were a PITA  I can remember heading back towards the office , pager goes , stop at every phone box , not working , until eventually arrive at office to be sent back same way .

Prompted to check when my first cellphone  , 1997   , same number but  only 10 figurers  , some outfit called Cellular GB Ltd   ..One 2 One .  No monthly bill showing .  

 

[UNG]

Pagers only became a PITA when the red roadside toilets were regularly vandalised and finding a working one you could make a call from was the exception rather than the norm

The only other problem was the customer that expected an instant reply although I caught a few out when I was driving past their premises and just walked into the reception

 

[kerching]

Major client of mine used pagers

whenever I was on site I was given one

mid winter , up on roof packing snow around a frost tape to see if it was working.....-6° at least

pager goes

down 4 ladders

across 5 flat roofs

down last ladder

then full length of main building

enter reception to be greeted by the ***** on reception with the words spoken to a visiting rep "....and that's how the pagers work"

i,was less than Christian in my response 

 

[Tony S]

One classic was the great white chief phoning me, “where are you?” At the time I was balanced on stepladders on top of a 120ft high crane with my left hand fingers in a hunting tooth limit switch. The reply once I’d got the phone out of my pocket using my right hand would get me banned from here.

Dropping my phone in to a ladle of molten iron prompted “can you get the bits back?” from Orange insurance.