AT&T Introducing WIRELESS In 1996. It Seemed Out-Of-This-World

[@diegocapuccio]

"...until she turn it off" still the focus was on practical communication and on humans, imagining nowadays people turning off the wifi seems extrange.

[@ian_ford]

I remember this well. Freshman year in college, seems like yesterday. Long before Short messaging system (SMS/text) came along, this was THE thing to have.

[@sstills951]

The first two years I went to UMASS Amherst, practically nobody I knew had a cellphone. Changing classes and walking on campus was a somewhat quiet affair. I took a year off to work, and when I went back to campus, suddenly it seemed like everybody had a cell phone and students pulled them out to make a call immediately leaving the buildings. Walking the campus had suddenly become a cacophony of conversations. This was in the early 2000s so some years after this commercial.

[@aj5762]

Hello fellow Alum!

[@NudePostingConspiracyTheories]

Im 61. I remember the peace

[@epilpstd1]

90's commercials, movies and TV have a great feel. I dont know why.

[@DavidHoffmanFilmmaker]

The advertising agencies in New York were experimenting. They even hired people like me to make commercials, a documentary filmmaker! David Hoffman filmmaker

[@QarleyQuark]

Wow! Technology was truly zooming throughout the 90s

[@sharondrury5676]

Holy cow, David. Congratulations. That description was enlightening. I knew a little about AT&T but I’ve been raising a family and haven’t kept up since I left ma bell in mid 60’s. Thank you. You are a wealth of knowledge and experiences. Much love.

[@moonbeanification]

Oh if we had any idea of the beast we were about to unleash....

[@moredistractions]

I had AT&T wireless in 1996. My plan cost was: $20/month plus $1/every minute used. Inflation in 2023 would almost exactly double those prices. Imagine what your total monthly bill would be if you had to pay $2 for every minute you spent on the phone.

[@Pieman29666]

Pretty much zero since everyone Texts each other instead of actually talking these days :D

[@BAD_CONSUMER]

Nobody spends time on the phone any more. So, pretty low.

[@Bennjammin]

Right, I used to walk around care free no way to contact me. Now I'm tied down to this thing, and I can't turn it off even if I wanted.

[@kathleenferguson3296]

I lived in Greenwich Village at this time, and we had our share of street crazies having loud conversations with themselves, or the voices in their heads. No matter, we knew them, and looked out for them. Suddenly one day, guys in suits are doing the same. Gesticulating and yelling ( poor reception) and we thought the world went mad! it was only the first cellular phones with ear pieces, and these were business calls. Holy whatever, it seemed like Psychotic Reaction for the whole populace!

[@MicahScottPnD]

That's a fantastic story!

[@cheri238]

​@@MicahScottPnD Lol

[@loganstroganoff1284]

I still don't use earbuds for phone calls in public for that very reason lol. And I too remember the early days of Bluetooth and thinking ppl were talking to themselves

[@Lava_Girl-]

Ah, yes, I like to think of the pre-wireless era as the good ol' days. Internet really threw us for a loop, however cellular devices...the mini computer you can put in your pocket is what forever changed us for the worse. In my opinion of course.

[@Meisha-san]

The tech didn't change us. Most people aren't self-regulating & disciplined enough to set appropriate boundaries on using the tech. Same with motor vehicles. Why do we experience the carnage we have on our roads? Are we going to blame cars?

[@Lava_Girl-]

@Meisha-san Disagreeing respectively here. I understand what you are saying however without cars there would be no wreck less drivers and therefore no car wrecks. If we got back to basics as a species I believe there would not be even half the issues that plague us today. Sure tech has allowed us to survive longer, keep in touch with each other faster and allowed us to explore like never before. But it has also caused us to destroy our planet faster and actually isolate us from real meaningful relationships and lives. We have an obesity epidemic. Widespread disasters & nuclear threat ever present. Tech has allowed us to now spread into the universe, like an infection threatening other civilizations.

[@Meisha-san]

@@Lava_Girl- I too respectfully understand your good logical argument. To disagree with it would be to ignore our cold, hard reality. I can't help being a wishful thinker, though. It's well within the capacity of our current human society to mature a little more & exercise control over our creations & actions. As a species, we're teetering on the edge of this next collective leap in emotional intelligence. With this perspective, I can't blame inanimate tech for the issues we're facing. We can grow out of this adolescent species stage that has us collectively behaving like viruses & move onto a more mature altruistic phase. That's what's going to turn this same tech into positive tools for positive endeavors. Time's running out fast for us, especially with the likes of autonomous general AI tech on the horizon.

[@Lava_Girl-]

@Meisha-san Well said, my friend. Your positive outlook is contagious. I truly admire you for not giving up on this planet and our future. Some may say that hope is a form of faith, and I strongly believe that to be true. I am glad we had this opportunity to share a little friendly debate. Thankyou ❤️

[@drewpall2598]

another informative description writes up David, Nice to know what film clips, documentaries and info-ads you worked on as a cameraman and or producer. 😊👍

[@franksavage8031]

Can't wait!

[@lifeofbella9246]

Technology! Wow 😮❤

[@Bruce_Peters]

So funny how AT&T was broken up into the Baby Bells, then all those Bells circled around, renaming themselves and coalescing back into AT&T at the end.😅

[@goodforyou3000]

Same with Standard oil coalescing ExxonMobil.

[@bsteven885]

Southwestern Bell (based in Texas) was the entity that swallowed up ALL the other baby Bells to become AT&T again.

[@eriggle83]

Ah, yes....the good ol days of fax machines in fire trucks. I remember it well.

[@StarFleet_Tech1701]

At&T WIRELESS, Technology which has enslaved us!

[@zippoamerika8794]

I remember A shoulder pack that was a battery and a hand held phone 😂

[@DavidHoffmanFilmmaker]

I had one of those. It was so thrilling. David Hoffman filmmaker

[@MasteringSilence]

This is wild, I was born in 1996.

[@JB-vk8jk]

It is likely people do not talk on the mobile device as much now as they did back then. Now it's used for watching utube vids

[@2dub2steady]

Motorola StarTac was the best phone ever made.

[@mdouglasinc]

Do firefighters get a floor-plan on their phone now?

[@barpoe]

I knew one person in 1996 with a cell phone. A friend of a friend. People thought it was so weird and unnecessary that first year 🤣

[@TradieTrev]

AT&T, still to this day is regarded as one of the worst telco providers on planet earth lol

[@DavidHoffmanFilmmaker]

That is not how the old AT&T was seen by any measure. Including being a great place to work. It used to get high ratings. When it got sold, it got worse by a lot. David Hoffman filmmaker

[@michelleelle4622]

Flashback! 🤣

[@matthewfarmer2520]

Good evening David i have DirecTV and the wireless AT&T at home right now so i can use the Internet like im doing now. Good to see you putting up anoth video. I guess your not handling out the Halloween candy 🍬🍭 your wife and your son is doing it. Thanks for sharing this have nice night.🎃📸

[@DavidHoffmanFilmmaker]

You are correct as to who is handing out the candy. David Hoffman filmmaker

[@thewkovacs316]

att introduced wireless decades before it just wasnt very practical

[@oldandstillhere]

I remember.

[@jawi499]

Has anyone called that number recently??

[@AidanTheLoverBoyOhDwyer]

I don't understand. I've seen people using cellphones in the mid 80s. So, how is this revolutionary or out of this world in 1996 🤔

[@danb308]

Because the person at the end turned off their phone when they sat down to meet with the person, given phones were an accessory back then. Today, go look in a restaurant and you can even see people on dates staring at each other's phones instead of at each other.

[@StarFleet_Tech1701]

You saw the gigantic brick bag phones that doctors or lawyers used in the 80’s!

[@AidanTheLoverBoyOhDwyer]

@@StarFleet_Tech1701 Yup. That Danny Glover scene from Lethal Weapon. Some more PORTABLE ones too. Basically, still like dumbbells but in a form of a brick.

[@MicahScottPnD]

Sometimes there's quite a gap between when a technology is available at all and available/affordable for everyone. In the 80s, probably not easy to obtain. This, 1996, probably a major step forward. We're probably seeing this exact thing play out right now with electric vehicles.

[@StinkyGringo]

No average person was walking around with cell phones until the mid 90s. It was too expensive and impractical.

[@Investigator86]

But alas, she will never turn it off….

[@paulcheek5711]

this is science fiction

[@2507gs]

Free huh? LOL