First one in '99 was some kind of click-to-talk plus cell phone, issued by my company, because it was so critical that we be available at all times. I did refuse to answer the click-to-talk in the bathroom, though.
My first personally-owned phone was probably 2005 or so, just a cheap flip phone with a pay-for-minutes plan that I got at Radio Shack. My partner is still using it, the carrier is Virgin Mobile.
Roddy
I still don’t have a cell phone. If I had a cell phone, then people would be able to contact me. 
I voted 90-92 because the car I was driving at the time had one in it and my ex had it briefly turned on.
But I didn’t really get a cell phone that I actually used to any degree until late 99/early 2000, when my husband and I were courting across country and on the phone all the time. It just made things easier to have the cell phone then.
My folks bought a pair of Motorola Star Tacs when I was in high school 1999-2003. We put the extended life batteries on them and they were HUGE.
I hated lugging those old cell phones around and steadfastly refused to purchase one of my own until about halfway through college when I realized it was kind of a dick move to be the only person without one.
Sometime in the late 90s. I worked for a private investigation firm, and we all used the old Nextel bricks to radio back and forth. It took me many years to be willing to scale down to a smaller cell. I liked the bricks because I didn’t feel like I could ever lose it – when that thing was strapped to your belt, you KNEW it. Walking around with that thing probably built up my leg strength.
I got one when Pay as You Go started being wide spread in the UK. I think 1997-ish, late 90s anyway
1996, when I had my first “job” (it was actually a very weird arrangement combining voluntary work, work experience and making conversation with the woman who ran the company and got lonely, but that’s irrelevant) in London. I’ve had the same number for fifteen years. For some reason that makes me feel really old!
You know how when you read a book, you get an image in your mind of all the characters? Well, I do the same for a number of Dopers. Just my impression of what they look like, who they are, etc… For instance, Shodan looks exactly like my Lit 101 professor from college, in my head.
You are much younger than I thought. Ten years younger. And now I feel really squicky about my internet crush. :smack: In my mind you will continue to be my age. 
Don’t have one and likely never will. I’m rarely more than 6 feet from my landline and for never more than 2 hours when I am. My discount service (universe life line) plus basic DSL comes to less than $40 a month. Of course when I get rid of the DSL that will halve my bill.
I only call my mother regularly and sometimes my ex and they are the only ones to call me (not counting the rare telemarketer or wrong number).
I voted 96-98 but I could be a block off. I know I had one in college, and I was in college from 1997-2001, but I am not sure if I got the phone the first year or not.
I may have even gotten it before college, because I was working sort of far away from home in the summer.
I’ve only had 3 models of phone since then. I’m still rockin’ the Razr.
Uh huh.
I can’t decide what disturbs me more: The fact that my tendency to mindlessly drop juvenile one-liners into every thread that I open gave you the impression that I’m in my 30s (I’m pretty sure most of the people on the board think I’m 12) or that that’s what you develop a crush for.
How you doin’?
2005, at the age of 34, at my wife’s urging. A very simple LG flip phone.
In 2008 that phone died, so I took the smartphone plunge and bought a Palm Centro, consolidating my phone with the Palm PDA I’d been using since 2001 or so. I still use it more as a PDA than a phone, and the email/web capabilities sure are nice to have.
Now that Verizon has the iPhone, it’ll probably come down to either that or an Android phone once this rickety Centro finally fails on me.
1993 and I still have the same number.
Around 2006. In college it was considered rare to not have one and there were several instances when I wish I had had one due to car trouble or asking someone if they wanted me to purchase a sale item, etc. It was a basic Nokia 1100 model, the best selling phone on earth (because it is cheap and durable it sells well in Asia & Africa).
I eventually traded up to a newer phone and am with the same provider, but 5 years later the costs of service are only slightly lower. So I’m guessing I got in when saturation had already been achieved and prices stopped declining.
I first got a mobile when I was living in the UK because my international dorm didn’t have in-room phone lines and it was a nightmare coordinating calls from my wife back in the States using the one communal pay phone at the end of the hall.
It was nice because back then, you could buy a cheap, dirty phone that I’d “top up”, but you only had to pay for calls you made, not calls you received, so my wife would call me and we could talk forever without it costing me a cent. Doubt it’s like that now, but back then, it was awesome (I kept a minimum balance to keep the # active, but never used the phone otherwise).
That was in 1999. Returned back to the states (w/my MA) in 2000, and may have gotten a stateside cel then–by the looks of it, perhaps the same clunker I still have now. Don’t remember.
2006, when I got my driver’s license.
I had one from an employer briefly back in the late 90’s, but I rarely ever even turned it on. My wife and I held out on buying one to share (for when we’d be on the road mostly) until around 2003, and we didn’t get our own individual phones until around 2005.