My First Mobile Phones

It was in the early 1990’s when I had my first mobile phone. A friend of mine bought a van from one of the car dealers in Manila and he was given a free mobile phone. Since he already has a mobile phone, my friend gave me the free mobile phone given to him by the car dealer. Its brand was Motorola. Its shape was like that of a manual ice shaver used by “halo halo” sidewalk vendors. It had a short retractable antenna, and a  mouth piece that can be flipped to open and close. Its battery was attached to the back of the phone that can be removed by sliding it. It had rubber  keypads with letters and numbers and was back lighted. It had a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) where the numbers that I dialled can be seen. It had a standard  ringing tone and it was not yet capable of sending SMS, or text messages. The phone was probably two or three inches thick, which made it difficult for me to put inside my pocket. At that time, there was no pre-paid plan yet, and I pay my monthly bills to a company called Mobiline.

Before I acquired my first mobile phone, I used to have a Pocketbell  beeper or mobile pager. It was a battery operated electronic gadget, about the size of a deck of playing cards or a pack of cigarettes. For somebody to contact me through my beeper, he or she has to call Pocketbell, the service provider, and dictate to the operator the message. Pocketbell then sends the message to my mobile pager unit, which either vibrates or makes a beeping sound to alert me that I have an incoming message. The message is displayed on the LCD of the mobile pager, which can be read as it scrolls up or to the side of the LCD. Messages can be stored or deleted from the mobile pager unit. It had a fixed monthly  subscription rate. After a few months, another mobile pager company, Jazzpage, came out. Their mobile pager units were about two times smaller than that of Pocketbell’s and their monthly subscription rate was cheaper. Their pager units can also function as a watch, an alarm clock and a calendar. The mobile paging system became obsolete when the mobile phones came out.

My second mobile phone was a Nokia. It also had a retractable antenna and its size was about three or four inches by six or seven inches. Since it was bigger than the Motorola, it was also heavier and could not also fit inside my pocket. At that time Globe Telecommunications was fast becoming a leader in mobile communications, and so I switched from Mobiline to Globe. A few months later, Motorola came out with new mobile phone models which are smaller and slimmer. And so I got a new model of Motorola mobile phone. Soon after, newer models of Nokia mobile phones also came out and I switched back to Nokia. That was the time that telecommunications companies started introducing the SMS, more  commonly referred to by many as text messaging. Since then, Nokia has been steadily putting out new models of mobile phones which are very user friendly. I have stayed with Globe as my mobile service provider for a long time, until Smart Communications and Sun Cellular came out in the market. As the models and brands of mobile phones increased, their prices relativelay decreased. Over time, the prices of SIM cards also became cheaper; it was almost like giving them away for free. I ended up using three different SIM cards by three different telecommunications companies, with three different mobile phones!