What a great show. And interestingly, despite being fictional, the point where the dealers failed was the collection of the phones - just the issue discussed above. I recall that phones were supposed to be bought from stores all over the place, but a lazy gang member kept getting all of them from one source.

That was the case, but it got worse. Lester and McNulty set him up with a great deal on the phones.

While I haven't heard the term burner phone outside of The Wire, I assumed it had been a real term since the writers were so close to these subjects. What I meant (more precisely) was that, from my perspective, The Wire popularized the term for a broader, non-burner purchasing audience.