A lot has changed over the years when it comes to cell phones and cell phone plans.
While many baby boomers can still remember viewing cell phones as a techy gadget from a Star Trek episode, they say nowadays the phones are smarter, smaller, cheaper and, in many ways, inescapable.
Name: Kaye Ivey
Occupation: Realtor with Keller Williams Realty
“I carry two phones, and I can’t even go to the grocery store without my two cell phones. It’s like having my kids with me. Now (cell phone companies) offer one set fee for unlimited talking. Used to, you had 400 minutes a month and you had to pay an overage of 40 cents a minute. Now I can talk as long as I want to. We can talk mobile to mobile for free. They used to charge you for everything.”
Name: Ann Ball
Age: 59
Occupation: Director of special projects at the Chattanooga Downtown Partnership
“I don’t know anything at all about plans. I just get the least expensive. I use about 30 minutes a month out of 15 million minutes. I have enough rollover minutes to blanket the earth. I think (cell phones) are so invasive. It’s not the phone, it’s the user. I am a die-hard resister. It is a convenience, and if you have a wreck it’s great to have one. But think about all the years we went without them.”
Name: Herb Hooper
Age: 55
Occupation: Project manager at Tennessee Valley Authority
“I think (the change in cell phone plans) is all for the better. What I have seen is the prices are more competitive. I used the cell phones back when they were box phones, and they were just expensive. They have come a long way. The reception nowadays is great. You can be just about anywhere and use a cell phone.”
Name: Frank Chambers
Age: 59
Occupation: Owner of Youth Fund Alliance
“I live out here away from most people, but I can still talk on the cell phone. The power of signals are so good and the connections are so good I can talk anywhere in the country on my cell phone and who would have thought it. When I grew up we had a hard line phone. That was it. You didn’t see beyond that. Remote controls on television were a distant universe. The first cell phone you had was either a car phone or you wore it like a gun slinger. Now they are small enough to put in your pocket. I believe that cell phones are indispensable except in restaurants, concert halls and movie theaters.”
Compiled by Joan Garrett
Joan Garrett has been a staff writer for the Times Free Press since August 2007. Before becoming a general assignment writer for the paper, she wrote about business, higher education and the court systems. She grew up the oldest of five sisters near Birmingham, Ala., and graduated with a master's and bachelor's degrees in journalism from the University of Alabama. Before landing her first full-time job as a reporter at the Times Free Press, she ...
