Yes and no. In 1999 you were very happy that there were servers that turned your emails to SMS and back. GSM services were parse and sporadic and not able to maintain internet connection. So you constructed your email and hiked up the hill to send it. On one particular case I tied the phone to the kite and was able to communicate with one Tom Brokaw, avid kayaker and portable desalinator expert.
Or what about fax? You could receive a fax with a mobile phone connected to a laptop. My friend's father did that so he could work at the summer cottage in the nineties. Required climbing up a hill.