A ‘revolutionary’ cordless (note – never ‘mobile’) phone system introduced by Hutchison Telecommunications (geddit?) in the early ’90s, which relied on the user being in close proximity to a ‘Rabbit point’ (at home, or in a shop, station, etc.) for the phone to be useable. Died out quickly, but the stickers (upside-down capital ‘R’ made to look like a rabbit’s head) can still be spotted on the doors of shops who’ve forgotten to take them down.
johnnyboy
December 16, 2009 at 12:16 am
Wasn’t there another major drawback in usage, outwith having to be near an actual Rabbit point, in that you could only make a call, not receive a call, as you didn’t have a separate phone number to be called on?
That’s my recollection.
Adrian
December 16, 2009 at 9:28 am
Mobiles are still called ‘Cellphones’ in the US.
Adrian
December 16, 2009 at 9:29 am
Come to think of it, whatever happened to pagers? No self respecting businessman or drug dealer was without one in the 80s..
Richard Davies
August 10, 2010 at 5:49 pm
The computer technician at my college had one, aloing with a box plugged into a normal phone socket to help with reception.
I remember pagers were all the rage about the same time when they become affordable & proper mobile phones were still contact only & needed a decent credit rating.
Andy Parker
October 3, 2011 at 11:49 pm
Mickey Pearce / Dougan from ‘Scum’ did the adverts for Rabbit. No wonder it flopped.
Will M
September 20, 2018 at 11:01 am
Pagers, I remember there being 2 types, the one that showed the number so you could call them back when you got to a phone, and the other being just a beeper, OK if you were a doctor and it indicated you should get to the hospital for an emergency, but the ordinary tradesperson had to find a payphone and phone the family, then his boss, to see who was looking for them.
Michael Strorm
March 20, 2024 at 9:32 pm
Had completely forgotten about Rabbit until I read something a while back. The launch date (mid-to-late 1992 according to Wikipedia) felt slightly but distinctly not *quite* long ago enough for a memory that my brain seemed vaguely insistment was late 80s nostalgia.
Turns out I was maybe right- sort of. The system was actually licensed- and presumably announced- in the late 80s, but didn’t make it to market until a few years later.
This would also explain why it failed, as regular mobiles would have fallen in price during that time. (Other sources seem to back up that guess).