TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Cell Phone Wearing Out?

Re: Cell Phone Wearing Out?

Joseph (JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com)
Fri, 15 Apr 2005 20:55:56 -0700

On 15 Apr 2005 11:33:41 -0700, ron@oakes.net wrote:

> One possibility is that the six-year-old phone is an analog (AMPS)
> only phone. Six years ago, 1999, CDMA was just starting to roll out
> and relatively few manufacturer had phones out (Qualcomm, Sony and
> towards the end of the year Motorola and Samsung, IIRC). Right now
> Verizon Wireless is in the process of reducing their analog coverage
> to the minimum that they can get away with in preparation to shutting
> down the analog system once they are allowed.

I don't know about "just rolling out." CDMA was accepted as a
standard in 1993 and went into operation in 1996.

> Therefore, it is possible that the trouble making calls was that the
> area being visited had poor analog coverage, but Choreboy's relative's
> home area still as good analog coverage.

> If this is case the technician still made an incorrect statement;
> either due to ignorance, or because of some policy that blames analog
> coverage woes on the phone rather than a business decision.

> If the phone is an analog only phone, upgrading it will eventually
> become a necessity as the FCC is eventually going to allow the
> carriers to turn analog off.

Analog is not scheduled to be turned off til 2008. It could possibly
be that the vendor had a desire to make someone convert from an
earlier digital standard (such as TDMA IS-136 that both AT&T Wireless
and cingular wireless run but want people to convert to GSM so they
can devote more of their network resources to GSM rather than the dead
end technology of TDMA which will not have any further new
development.)

On Fri, 15 Apr 2005 13:36:21 -0500, GlowingBlueMist
<ljm012@invalid.com> wrote:

> If she likes her present phone and does not want to "upgrade" she
> might want to consider purchasing a TracPhone or other type of prepaid
> phone for traveling. The model I use will first try to make a digital
> connection and then switch to analog if that is all that is available,
> making it compatible with the older towers as well as the new ones.

Newer TracFone (note the F) uses GSM so they do not have the fallback
to analog AMPS.

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