The world’s first telephone call was made on April 3, 1973, and by the end of the century there were 86 million wireless subscribers in the United States. Fast forward to today, and there are now over 400 million accounts. Over time, a lot has changed about the way we use our cell phones, and one of the biggest changes is how we pay for it.
The 1990s were a decade of whirlwind changes in the technology industry, and this was especially true when it came to cell phone services. Wireless carriers have faced fierce competition with a rush of local players like Houston Cellular, Bell Atlantic and NYNEX grabbing share in their respective markets before eventually being gobbled up in succession to become the big three in cellular service: AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon.
At the time, however, a crowded field and changing technologies (cross-network text messaging and mobile Internet access debuted in 1999) meant that pricing plans, add-ons, and fees were never the same between any two carriers. However, for the average consumer, it wasn’t for gigabytes or SMS messages that they were paying for: it was for call minutes.
How much did cell phone plans cost in the 90s?
A few snapshots illustrate how quickly prices changed. In 1997, Comcast-owned MetroPhone released brochures advertising monthly plans on its new digital network for $20 (or $42 when adjusted for inflation) for 15 minutes of talk – beyond that, local rates of 10 cents per minute during off-peak hours and 40 cents during peak hours. The more you pay, the more free minutes you get and the lower your local peak overage rate, although your long distance and roaming rate will still be 55 cents per minute.
In 1999, Mother Earth News offered slightly more generous packages: $30 ($60 today) could get you about 100 minutes per month, but you could also get a dedicated plan of 500 minutes or more to use in the evenings and weekends for an extra $7 to $10 per month. Of course, overages and roaming fees still applied, along with other small fees for voicemail access, account maintenance, and other random things. And when text messaging became a thing, it was extra!
In the 2020s, we’ve been spoiled by cheap wireless plans that include unlimited texting and long-distance calling, but some of us will be drawn to those luxurious $100 plans with bundled extras like streaming subscriptions. Keep in mind that most of us no longer pay for landline phone service with our mobile bill, so there are some decent savings there.
How much did cell phones cost in the 90s?
Similar to today’s phone plans, cell phone carriers subsidized the sale of cell phones in the ’90s to let you access their networks and pay for all those minutes and fees. They weren’t as dramatic as the free phone deals (with a new line of service on an eligible service plan, applied via monthly credits on an equipment installment plan) we have today, but the discounts were still quite substantial.
The defunct electronics retailer RadioShack, which produced and sold its branded devices alongside those from Motorola and Nokia, was happy to take $300 off the total price if you activated the device with in-store service. Subsidized prices advertised in a 1999 catalog ranged from free to $50. A former Sprint customer posted his first bill from May 2000 on Reddit, which included a $200 charge for a random phone. The flagship feature of these phones? Maybe not the LCD or seven-segment screens, but the number of phone numbers they can store in their memory.
