Video: 1989 Radio Shack Cellphone Ad at a Cost Today of $1,500 … on Sale

Video: 1989 Radio Shack Commercial for Its ‘Most Powerful, Transportable Cellphone’ at a Cost Today of $1,500 … on Sale! (AEIdeas)

In today’s dollars, the $799 sale price in 1989 for Radio Shack’s “most powerful, transportable cellular phone system” (featured in the video above) would be more than $1,500, and the full price of $1,139 would be more than $2,000. Note also that to get the $799 sale price you had to sign up for Radio Shack’s “authorized cellular phone carrier” service. The BLS didn’t start tracking “wireless telephone services” until 1998, but during that time the CPI for wireless telephone services fell by 41%, and after adjusting for inflation by more than 59%. If your monthly cell phone bill today is $75, it would have been about $182 per month in today’s dollars back in 1998, and probably way above $200 per month in 1989 when the Radio Shack “cell phone” was advertised.