Today, many of us take our cell phones for granted. Believe it or not, this was not always the case. When the telephone network and landline phones first boomed, they were a luxury that only the wealthy could afford. Let\’s take a look at the beginning of the telephone age together.
September 12, 1991 was a watershed day. On that day, the first NMTtelephone network operated by EuroTel was launched in the Czech Republic. However, this network did not cover the entire Republic, but only a small part of the country (around Brno and Prague). All devices belonging to this network had a 601 area code, even though the devices did not have SIM cards. This was evidenced by the fact that the phone number was tied to the device itself (if the device stopped working or was disconnected, the phone number ceased to exist)
. In 1994, there were only 27,000 devices connected to the network, an unimaginable difference from today. It is not surprising, however, that the number grew so slowly. The cost of just connecting to the network alone cost Eurotel about million kronor. Later, one was faced with the purchase of the telephone itself, which amounted to about million kronor. If the average citizen feels that it would take a lifetime to save enough money for this, he is right. The average salary was around 4,000 crowns
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Owning one such device and having full use of it was truly a sign of luxury and wealth. It was only with the rise of information technology and the emergence of competitive networks that services began to become inexpensive.
So even if the services of telecommunications carriers today seem expensive to you, compared to the 1990s, they are almost free.
