I C AN NEC 'N AN HTC! 😊
I dug into my archives and found this nearly forgotten image of two cellphones from different eras: an analog NEC Primero BX brick from the mid 1990s and an old digital HTC Incredible S - my very first smartphone from 2011.
The NEC brick phone belongs to my barber and is seen with an aftermarket bulbous ended antenna that was more aesthetic than it was functional. Its original antenna was actually a short, "rubber duck" type that you see on UHF walkie talkies.
NEC made two variants of the Primero BX: a 900 MHz ETACS unit and an 800 MHz AMPS model for two competing telecommunications companies, which used differing analog cellular network systems - the Celcom ART 900 (900 MHz) and the Mobifon 800 (800 MHz) services, which have long been defunct.
Between the two rivals, only the Celcom company remains in operation to this day and has been providing the digital GSM standard, wireless telephony service since 1995.
Mobikom, faced with a losing battle against the more established Celcom service and new, digital GSM/PCN upstarts like Maxis and DiGi cellular companies, found itself trapped with its AMPS network infrastructure and a dwindling number of subscribers. Although the company's AMPS network was ready to use the digital version (D-AMPS) the cost of dual mode (analog/digital) cellphones were too prohibitive for its consumers. Although Mobifon 800 started off in 1994 with a sizeable customer base, it ceased operations by 1996 and faded into the oblivion.
The two Primero BX ETACS and AMPS models were nearly indistinguishable from one another and they cannot be interchanged. In those days, if you switched services you had to sell off your existing cellphone and change to another that worked with the other service.
I C AN NEC 'N AN HTC! 😊
I dug into my archives and found this nearly forgotten image of two cellphones from different eras: an analog NEC Primero BX brick from the mid 1990s and an old digital HTC Incredible S - my very first smartphone from 2011.
The NEC brick phone belongs to my barber and is seen with an aftermarket bulbous ended antenna that was more aesthetic than it was functional. Its original antenna was actually a short, "rubber duck" type that you see on UHF walkie talkies.
NEC made two variants of the Primero BX: a 900 MHz ETACS unit and an 800 MHz AMPS model for two competing telecommunications companies, which used differing analog cellular network systems - the Celcom ART 900 (900 MHz) and the Mobifon 800 (800 MHz) services, which have long been defunct.
Between the two rivals, only the Celcom company remains in operation to this day and has been providing the digital GSM standard, wireless telephony service since 1995.
Mobikom, faced with a losing battle against the more established Celcom service and new, digital GSM/PCN upstarts like Maxis and DiGi cellular companies, found itself trapped with its AMPS network infrastructure and a dwindling number of subscribers. Although the company's AMPS network was ready to use the digital version (D-AMPS) the cost of dual mode (analog/digital) cellphones were too prohibitive for its consumers. Although Mobifon 800 started off in 1994 with a sizeable customer base, it ceased operations by 1996 and faded into the oblivion.
The two Primero BX ETACS and AMPS models were nearly indistinguishable from one another and they cannot be interchanged. In those days, if you switched services you had to sell off your existing cellphone and change to another that worked with the other service.