While Cell Phones were not popular tech, how were car phones able to be so seemingly widespread? What makes the differences in technology between the two?

Question

Perhaps my interpretation of this is wrong, but it seems like car phones were much more widespread and easily accessible to most members of the public as opposed to Cellular Phones which were almost exclusively for the very wealthy/businesspeople etc. Is there a difference in the tech that made this so? How does a car phone work, if its different than how a cell phone works? TIA

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Answer 1

No you’ve got it backwards, car phones were an extravagant luxury, cell phones were when it became adoptable to the plebs. Car phones basically carried everything a cell phone spreads out, it would have either a huge battery or use power from the car battery, had an enormous antenna in the trunk, was large and boxy, it was something put in the back of limos or expensive cars, only worked in cities, etc.

Cell phones were only viable once enough cell towers could carry the signal, the phone had a small antenna, a small battery, the cell tower acted as a big antenna for the cell phones small antenna. And really cell phones only became viable once pagers laid the infrastructure down, they used much of the same tech.

But car phones were not everywhere, they were a rarity and expensive to use.