Analog Cellular Shutdown To Hit Built-In Devices

Nick Kilkenny sends us an AP article on the imminent shutdown of the US analog cellular network, now 24 years old. The network is scheduled to go dark on Feb. 18, 2008; some users, such as OnStar, are stopping analog service at the end of this year. Here's a list of devices and industries that will be affected by the shutdown. (Cellular telephony won't be affected much.) "The shutdown date has been known years in advance, but some industries appear to have a had a problem updating their technologies and informing their customers in advance... General Motors Corp., which owns OnStar, started modifying its cars after the 2002 decision by the Federal Communications Commission to let the network die, but some cars made as late as 2005 can't use digital networks for OnStar, nor can they be upgraded. For some cars made in the intervening years, GM provides digital upgrades for $15." Update: 12/22 22:25 GMT by KD : Replaced two registration-required links.

Comments

Goodbuy car and brick phones

[zakezuke]

The main reason I disapprove of this closure is the existence of 3 watt car phones to which there was NEVER any digital replacement. These are ideal for backwoods environments. Looks like there are boosters but still it's a bit of a hassle.

I also wonder what will happen to roadside call boxes. Were these AMPS?

Re:Goodbuy car and brick phones

[sortius_nod]

We had a massive incident here in Australia where a plane came down in the bush, noone for 100's of kms. The pilot had both analog and digital mobiles. The unfortunate thing was that he had no digital coverage and the closest analog tower had been shut down. Pilot & passangers all died from exposure and it came out that if the analog tower was active they could have made a call to get help.

The digital tower had actually taken the spot of the analog tower. This gave us another few years of analog and a dodgy attempt to get the same range as analog out of digital (Telstra call it Next-G, but it's just 3.5g with a massive boosting system). The solution definately doesn't work, not when techs in the bush call me saying "I used to be able to call anyone from within the server room here, now I can't... *dropout* et *dropout*... *click*".

Re:OnStar

[iggy_mon]

http://www.tonyrogers.com/news/onstar.htm now go get me my foil hat... over there... in your momma's basement :-)