We know the EXACT timeline of Hajime no Ippo up to this point. The story's original setting was fixed at 1989. It has been 11 years since then. A couple in-universe years ago (and a few more out-of-universe years), the author even acknowledged (through the manga-ka character that loosely represents himself, Umezawa, who talked about it a little) that it was when the most popular manga in history, One Piece, was just starting/getting off the ground (that chapter occurred in 1998 in this universe's timeline I think, One Piece started in July 1997). He talked about it as some up-and-coming author who immediately got popular with a pirate story, or something like that (I may be misremembering the details but it was very plainly a reference to One Piece).
It should be exactly the year 2000 right now. Smartphones don't exist.
The author has officially decided to take the Detective Conan route and just modernize everything because it's easier. There was no way for them to suddenly jump to 2007 when iphones and youtube existed lol. Even a couple years ago (out of universe), they were still using VHS tapes for recorded matches.