On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 10:38:21 -0400, "Dana" wrote:

Why bother? Analog cell phones are going away on Valentine's Day
2008.
http://dialzero.blogspot.com/2007/06/analog-cellphone-service-to-end-after.html

The FCC does not require that analog service be turned off. Only that
carriers are not required to continue analog service past that date.
A good number of rural areas will probably continue to use Analog cellualr
service for a few years after that.

True. Analog will probably dribble along for quite a while. The only
plans that I've heard or read are Verizon's. They're going to (or
already have) change the PRL (preferred roaming list) to not include
analog roaming. I know a local die hard who was informed in writing
that analog will be "going away" in Feb 2008 and that they will not
renew his contract for analog after that date. I haven't seen the
actual letter so I don't know if there are any details such as the
date they'll pull the plug on him. I had the same issue with Verizon
and a non-GPS enabled cell phone, where they refused to renew the
contract with the old phone. That means that all analog phones might
be gone by the time the current contracts expire, which would a
maximum of 2 years (probably much less).

at&t will probably do the same thing. The only analog systems they
still operate are the 800MHz TDMA systems they inherited from Dobson,
Cell One, and others. You'll probably get a Valentine greeting card
from at&t announcing the demise of analog.

Incidentally, at&t discontinued its CDPD (cellular digital packet
data) service in mid 2004. Verizon did the same a year later. Yet, I
still am getting sync and carrier for CDPD on my Novatel(?) CDPD
modem. As I mentioned in another thread, there are still IMTS tones
on the air. I guess old services never seem to die completely.

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