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Analog Cell Phone Network Shuts Down Monday
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Feb 15, 2008 05:53 PM
from the end-of-an-ear-a dept.
from the end-of-an-ear-a dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "AT&T and Verizon will be shutting down their old, analog AMPS networks next Monday, and AT&T will also turn off its old TDMA network, with smaller providers expected to follow thanks to a sunset date set by the FCC. After these old networks are shut down, the networks will be all digital. Of course, if you have one of those old fashioned 'just a phone' cellphones and it happens to be analog, you'd best enjoy the last few days before it becomes useless."
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Submission: Analog Cell Phone Network Shuts Down Monday by Anonymous Coward
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Analog has its place (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Analog has its place (Score:4, Informative)
If your old phone meets your needs and you're happy with it, then that's great. It's about to stop meeting your needs, though, so you might as well get over the assumption that nothing new will be able to meet your needs. If you shop around a bit (and it probably won't even take much of that), you'll find that assumption to be false.
Parent
Re:Analog has its place (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, aside of course from a Samsung M210, LG LX-160, Nokia 2610, Kyocera MARBL, Motorola C168i, Sanyo SCP-7050 or maybe your into NextTel iDen Push-To-Talk in which case the Motorola i570 or i690 would fit the bill or maybe you need a PDA... the new RIM BlackBerry 8800's including the 8800, 8820, 8830 all don't come with a camera either.
So lets see
Oh wait... all the Apple iPhones come with a camera.
Yeah, I guess your screwed.
Parent
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But I think it won't be long until there are "business" phones without cameras, for security/privicy etc.
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A few years ago, I was working the night shift in the datacenter underneath the VEC (formally midlux) at the GM Tech Center. Cameras were very strictly forbidden, due to prototype parts lying all over the place, and I needed a new cellphone.
I had a simple list of requirements:
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If you look on several of the carriers maps which show full state coverage, then look at what they mean by that, much of the rural coverage is 1st generation only.
If I'm readying this information correctly, I'm going to have some unhappy relatives. I'm on quad band GSM only, so it doesn't
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Re:Analog has its place (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Analog has its place (Score:4, Informative)
No [onstar.com].
How about ADT and Brinks, are they going to retrofit home security systems for free?
ADT is subsidized [adt.com]. Brinks does not sell systems, they only lease them so they've already switched over.
Parent
Re:Analog has its place (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
And good riddance. (Score:2)
Re:And good riddance. (Score:4, Interesting)
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Parent
AMPS has FAR more coverage than GSM. (Score:5, Insightful)
You may have a point on most of those issues. But AMPS has FAR more coverage than the digital alternatives.
AMPS was deployed back when the phone companies thought the point of a cellular phone system was to be able to use the phone virtually anywhere. It covers nearly all of the continental US except for some very remote locations.
The digital alternatives were deployed late in the game, installed initially in large population centers and with the rural cells installed or converted largely after the telecom crash, when the tellcos were having trouble getting capital and were cutting costs wherever possible to keep their competitors from eating their lunch. The result is that cells that exist to fill in rural holes but don't generate enough calls to pay for themselves directly didn't get converted - and even some of the more suburban cells didn't get upgraded until the last few months.
If AMPS really goes dark now, much of rural America (at least the part not adjacent to an interstate highway) would have no cell service at all. That would mean that, even if you paid for a digital upgrade for your OnStar it would not work.
AT&T FINALLY converted the cell that covers my retirement home, just a couple months ago. So I just converted my cellphones to GSM. But I do a lot of traveling and vacationing in AMPS-only country - nearby that site and otherwise. In those areas the new handset is just a paperweight, while a car breakdown can be a death sentence if help can't be called. So I'm hanging on to my old AMPS-capable handset in the hope that at least some of the AMPS-only towers will stay alive.
I'm betting on the little carriers to keep theirs going and maybe even buy up some the big carriers are abandoning. But I wouldn't put it past the bean-counters at the big carriers to shut down their own low-traffic AMPS-only or AMPS-TDMA cells rather than spending the bux to convert them. (IMHO if they were really interested in keeping the coverage up they'd have ALREADY converted them (rather than just running ads about what great coverage they have), and their coverage maps show they haven't.)
Parent
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I've tried T-Mobile's GSM, and simply put, in the US in the urban areas I travel, it stank, uniformly. I have friends with new iPhones that bemoan the day they plunked down lots of $$$ on them specifically because of AT&T's coverage problems, and the fact that AT&T is only now starting to roll out sufficient digital coverage to catch the larger moaners.
Certainly there's an immense geography that isn't sufficiently covered by digital/CDMA or GSM. I wonder if fiber will get th
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AMPS or not, I'd keep a CB radio in the car too.
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DUDE!, Check It!
http://www.acrelectronics.com/microfix/microfix.htm [acrelectronics.com]
And Remember Kids: "The MicrOFix(TM) is a satellite signaling device of last resort, for use when all other means of self rescue have been exhausted, where the situation is grave and imminent loss of life, limb, eyesight, or valuable property will occur without assistance."
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The advantage of the digital alternatives is that they can get many more calls into a given swath of spectrum. That's a really big deal in a city (especially one where carving the cells up finer is no longer an option due to regulatory resistance to installing more cell sites). Thus the urban service providers want to make the switch.
In the deep-boonies having more calls on a cell is not an issue - while having a s
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Careful with the cheering (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Careful with the cheering (Score:4, Insightful)
Hopefully the death of analog will inspire the carriers to finally put digital towers up in rural areas so everyone can enjoy the benefits of digital (rather than merely enjoying the benefits of not being able to call or be called!)
Parent
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When analog is better (Score:2)
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What about the "forbidden" bands? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that there would be anything interesting in those frequencies now, but it always bothered me in a way that my radio had holes in its coverage.
Re:What about the "forbidden" bands? (Score:5, Insightful)
The frequency ban will stay in effect. It even affects us ham operators, unless we buy receivers from out of the country.
Parent
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Okay, I don't believe in imaginary submitters (Score:4, Interesting)
No reasoning behind this, just curious.
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I submit a lot, that's how. (Score:5, Informative)
Although someone replied to you that I was Zonk's sock puppet, I have no link to any of the Slashdot editors as far as I know. Heck, I'm not even in the top 10 [slashdot.org] submitters or all that close. As you can see, there are many who have even less of a life than I do (or something) and have hundreds of submissions. New York County Lawyer keeps flirting with the #10 spot, and I think you guys know how much he posts.
As for my motive, well, it's mostly just for fun while I slack off from my work as a sysadmin for a place that makes windows (the glass kind, not the Microsoft kind). Sure, I have an agenda to push, but I'm just some guy who fits entirely too many Slashdot stereotypes, which is why I link to the EFF donate page, or to that "I Wouldn't Steal" page the EU folks made. I should probably link to the US Pirate Party [pirate-party.us] more often, too.
I use an unregistered account for a number of reasons. One is that I'm doing this from work. Another is that anyone who believes as I do is free to share the ID and post stories to Slashdot.
Unlike the others who dump as many submissions as they can, I try to cull what I think are the best stories of the day. I frequently ignore stories that later appear on Slashdot anyhow. An example from today would be how the UK ISPs put out a statement that they're against policing users. The statements are new, but the story isn't. I just covered it yesterday, so I felt it was too much of a rehash and ignored it. When I think there's something new, I try to link to the previous stories and give better coverage.
Also, you may have noticed that I try to be diligent in marking PDF (and
So, that's it in a nutshell. If you don't like me, I'm sorry, but there's not much I can do about that, though I'm open to reasonable suggestions. I have no idea when I'll get too bored or busy to continue. I have no idea if people will ever take up posting in "my" name. But that's who and what I am and I'm always trying to find ways to make better submissions.
In other words, except for the attention-grabbing name, I'm a pretty typical Slashdotter.
- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property
Parent
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Great! (Score:2)
In all seriousness, has any mobile manufacturer made an analogue phone in the last ten years?
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Legacy embedded devices? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, I said "cya" to my old bag-phone 15 years ago just like everybody else, but there's probably lots of these systems that will need to be replaced.
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My educated guess is that they will use those frequencies to provide some sort of digital replacement service. Really poor speed or voice only), but covers a wide area.
Yes, it's going to be painful for the first year or two, but they have to pull down the old system before they can put
Easier to Wiretap (Score:5, Interesting)
Traffic lights will also lose connectivity (Score:4, Informative)
The CPDP data protocol, used by many embedded system modems like those in traffic control will also be shut down since it is part of the AMPS network.
Good thing it's Presidents' Day on Monday!
911/donated cell phones/abused women (Score:3, Interesting)
Have they been warned about the upcoming transition? Are the cell phone companies going to give them new digital phones?
Re:Refurbished Junk (Score:4, Interesting)
But analog phones - ugh. I remember the three hours of standby battery life, and 30 minutes of talk time, or having a phone the size of a brick. My first two cell phones were dual-mode or tri-mode; they'd work on analog networks as well as digital, and I remember that if it had to use the analog network, the battery life would drop from a day or two to hours.
Parent
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When new stuff becomes cheap enough it's actually cheaper to replace older stuff than try to keep it alive.
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It's all about how many users they can fit into the channels they are licensed.
CDMA is the undisputed ruler of bandwidth but call audio quality suffers in congested cells, though at least CDMA users are almost guaranteed the ability to complete a call even if you cannot hear the called party clearly.
GSM is always good quality at the expense of the bandwidth used
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Yes you wont be mugged for your phone!
~Dan