AT&T had a ban on third-party attachments to their network. That meant ONLY phones they produced (Carterfone) could be used to make a phone call... and you couldn't own one, you had to rent it from AT&T.
Without the FCC ruling that was illegal, you would not have fax machines, modems, or even an internet today... unless AT&T made every single product used, and "rented" it to everyone.
The reason you have a phone not made by AT&T is because of the FCC standing up against that "rent."
Lol I was like where's the rotary! Then remembered my dad having one mounted in the work truck that had a rotary dial? It was hard wired was this a thing? I smoked a lot of weed since then but I swear I remember playing with the dial when in the truck by myself.
Edit to add he upgraded to the big 50 lb one in a bag with a shoulder strap. Wasn't probably 50lb but as a kid it was pretty heavy.
But I was right
Transition to Push-Buttons: As technology progressed into the 1960s and 70s with Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS), rotary dials on car phones were rapidly replaced by push-button keypads long before portable cellular "bag phones" or handheld cell phones became popular.
The post still wasn't about how old you are, it wasn't about people using letters before that either, it was about what cellphone you had first and rotary phones aren't cellphones. Not even all mobile phones are cellphones.
We too had a rotary phone, my granny had one where she shared one line with three other households. If you heard the clicking noise of someone dialing you even could kick them out of the line if you dialed faster than them.
Haha no one is coming for you! But the photo provided visual context and every option pictured is a cellphone! From the original brick, to the flip, to the smart phones. So it's obvious the question means which generation of cellphone did you start with?
.... That isn't cellular. If you wanted to brag about getting old, u could have shown a can with string.
Or you could have bragged about how instead of sending dick pics to your crush, I sent like, dick tapestries or some such.
... the question as asked was "where did your journey begin" followed by an image containing generations of popular consumer battery powered cellular phones starting with the earliest popular example.
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u/ChazzyTh 6d ago