Analog Cell Phone Network Shuts Down Monday

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."

Re:Analog has its place

[mea37]

Not every digital phone has a camera. Not even every new phone has a camera.

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.

I submit a lot, that's how.

[Anonymous Coward]

Those 1-3 submissions come from 5-6 submissions per day as you can see in the Firehose. Sometimes, you'll have some I submitted yesterday mixed with those submitted today as you can see right now. I submitted the earlier story about printers yesterday, but this one was submitted this afternoon. Again, you can see all this on the Firehose, which date stamps them when I submit them.

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 .DOC) files, naming unnamed 'researchers' who discover things, giving you the original story where possible (rather than some sites re-re-re-report of whatever), linking to Wordpress and similar blogs via Coral Cache (and seeding the cache by visiting the site BEFORE I send it to Slashdot). Not to mention whichever other random ideas that come up periodically when someone writes a (+5, Insightful) saying "Why the HELL didn't you do X???" I've had to rewrite more than one headline to fit in the length limits without a damn ? at the end, bite my tongue to avoid hilarious and snarky quips I would like to add as the last line, and find those damn typos that manage to sneak past me even though I spell check my submissions.

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

Re:Analog has its place

[slazzy]

Blackberry already makes "business" versions of their camera phones without cameras just for that reason.

Re:Analog has its place

[damiangerous]

What about the 500,000+ first generation OnStar equipped GM vehicles with analog cellular radios? Is GM going to offer a free retrofit?

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.

Re:AMPS has FAR more coverage than GSM.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The FCC didn't say "turn it off by ...". They said "You don't have to keep it on after ..."

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 single cell cover a wider service area due to the higher power limit on AMPS transmission is a benefit.

Re:Careful with the cheering

[fingusernames]

I'm sorry, but better sound? AMPS with a clear signal is the best you are going to get. AMPS, a form of FDMA, was designed back in the days of just an A carrier and B carrier per market, when cell service was expensive. AMPS, and even N-AMPS, wasn't designed to maximize calls per antenna, it was designed to match the voice bandwidth used by analog telephone lines, essentially a wireless equivalent. Everything since then has been designed to maximize capacity at the expense of voice quality. PCS, TDMA, GSM (which is TDMA BTW -- TDMA is not analog), CDMA, all have as a major design criteria increasing the call capacity of limited frequency bandwidth. The result is greater competition, reduced cost, wider availability of cell phones, everybody and their pet carrying one, etc., all good things perhaps -- but "better" sound quality? I don't think so.

Larry

Traffic lights will also lose connectivity

[kriston]

This also means that some traffic lights will lose connectivity.
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!

Re:Analog has its place

[jhobbs]

ADT maybe subsidized, however after my post I called my Mom, an ADT customer. She was required to upgrade last October. Her equipment was subsidized (so they tell her). Her personal cost for the upgrade was US$200.