Actually, your son had an option - get a job and purchase his own cell phone if it was all that important to him.
That is the option my children have.
Yes, he did have that option and he chose not to do it. It wasn’t that important to him. My son started working at age 14 and save $10,000 for college over 10 years ago. He’s not a slacker. And like I said, he never complained about it. But, years later he told me that it was difficult making plans while everyone else was doing it easily with their phones. He’s 29 years old now. It’s ancient history. He just had his first child and my first grandchild. It will be interesting to see when that child gets his first phone.