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Ericsson AH 97 - GE POCKETFONE:




Decades ago, a friend of mine said he was going to make the hour-long drive down to Cedar Rapids. The Best Buy
down there was opening a cell phone kiosk, possibly the first in the state, and he was going to take a look,
and maybe even get one. Asked if I wanted to tag along - sure!

So we get down there and it's a bit like the jewelry counter in the box stores, with the glass cases surrounding
a clerk. This was their first day and everyone was new to cell phones, so there were a lot of questions and a
lot of people thumbing through booklets and not knowing answers.

The phones were arranged in a long row by price, with the expensive ones on the left end and the cheap ones on
the right end. Now this was 1992, there were no Android or iPhones. Most of these were some variation of bag
phone, giant grey Motorola walkie talkie bricks, or kits to install into a car with foot-long handsets and 18
foot long curly cords. There were some compact phones, but they looked a bit like big versions of a nokia brick,
with very basic buttons and tiny screens.

We spent time looking over the phones, and started reading the literature and the posted signs with prices and
plans. Again this is the 90s and prices are absolutely terrible by today' standards. Most of them came with a
pittance of minutes per month, and all of them charged by the minute for more time. This was long before text
messaging, so none of these phones did texts, and there were no "apps". Most of the phones had one or two line
LCD displays that could only show a phone number and a few symbols like battery strength. Phone plans were
expensive, most of them hundreds of dollars per month, all of them with at least a one year contract.

After some looking we both liked the fancy GE "flip phone" (not really a flip phone, it just had a flip cover
for the keypad) on the left. It was so slick compared to the other phones though. It had a green back-lit
display with FOUR lines of alpha-numeric text, a big keypad with soft, back-lit buttons, and yet was one of the
most compact phones in the display. The giant car phones had similar displays and keypads, but that's because
most of the phone was a giant box installed inside the car at the other end of that huge curly cord. This one
wasn't cheap either... $500 iirc, but that wasn't the problem. The plan listed below it was iirc a 2 year
contract, at something like $299 a month, with NO bundled minutes, and time was $3 per minute.

Way over at the other end of the display, they had an older design bag phone. I don't remember much about it
but there was a plan listed by it, $100 and 10 minutes a month, $1 each additional minute. At the time, this
was a very reasonable plan. Now I had no intention of getting a cell phone, I was just there to look and to
help my friend decide, but we stopped the clerk at the kiosk to ask some questions. I remember pointing to
the GE on the left and saying "that's a nice phone but the plan is terrible - can you get that phone with
THAT plan? (pointing to the bag phone)" This was his first day selling phones so he didn't really know.
"I guess so?" My friend immediately yells "I'll take one!" And without really thinking, I said "I'll take
one too!" So he got his first two sales right then and there. We signed the paperwork (no credit checks back
then) and left with our new cell phones.

Now NOBODY had a cell phone like this. Just the rare bag phone (contractors usually), motorola walkie talkies
(construction workers and businessmen) and car phones on those comically long curly cords (traveling salesmen)
So we got lots of questions, and people always wanting to make a call. One friend asked where we got it. We
told him, gave him the number at Best Buy, and told him to talk with the rep we got our phones from. (I forget
his name) Anyway. he called Best Buy and asked to speak with the rep. "that person no longer works here!"
OOPS! We just might have gotten him fired that day. That expensive contract that came with the phone no
doubt helped cover the cost of the phone, and we got the phone with the (probably mostly worthless) contract
on the bag phone. I'm guessing we cost Best Buy a few grand that day, totally on accident!

After about three months they "upgraded" our contracts. Monthly price dropped from $100/month to $80, free
minutes went from 10 to 20, and minute cost went down from $1.00 to 50 cents. That was awesome! But I had to
turn off the ringer. Now everyone knows what it's like to have your phone go off in a meeting or class today...
back then it was a totally different experience. Nobody had a cell phone. So imagine me sitting in class, and
my phone rings. No choice of ringtones here, it's just a shrill tweet. CLASS STOPS. Everyone turns and
looks at me. EVERYONE. The instructor even stops talking and just stares daggers at me as I fumble trying
 to silene the phone. It's a total show-stopper, and I'm not the type that enjoys that sort of attention!

Another day I was in the lounge just sitting on a bench when another student walks up and stares at me.
"You a cop?" as he points at my phone on my belt. No? "Oh, you work for the railroad then?" Also no?
Why do you think that? "Only cops and railroad workers carry those voice pagers, though that's a really small
one you've got there." Oh that's not a voice pager, that's my phone. He gives me a bit of a stink-eye.
"Why do you have your phone with you? Does it really work that far from the dorms?" No I... oh, you thought
this was a cordless phone, no, it's a CELL phone, I can make calls anywhere.

His eyes light up like a kid looking at christmas presents. "That's a cell phone?! Really? You can make
calls with it, here?! Can I make a call with it? It'll be a short call! Pleeeeease?" oookay, I suppose.
He grabs it, dials it, "Dave? This is Brian! Guess what? I'm talking to you on a CELL PHONE!" I kinda
zoned out the rest of the conversation, thinking that was a fantastic waste of a few of my limited minutes.
But it perfectly described the reaction of pretty much everyone back then to cell phones.

Ericsson AH 97 back	Ericsson AH 97 front open	Ericsson AH 97 front	Ericsson AH 97 left side	Ericsson AH 97 right side

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