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

No-reg link for the "what's affected article"

[Coopjust]

Non-registration link for the Chicago Tribune article.

Re:OnStar

[Tony Hoyle]

It's an iCar

Brilliant user interface, hailed as the best car ever. Inexplicably it has only one door, no reverse gear and the hood is welded shut.

Not only OnStar

[kent_eh]

When my employer (a cell company who shall not be named) killed off our analog system we sent out notices to all analog subscribers over a year in advance.
And 6 months in advance.
And each month for the last 3 months.
2 weeks before shutdown one customer, an alarm company, threatened to sue us to keep it on the air because they hadn't had enough advance warning to get their customers' installations upgraded.

Apparently they didn't believe we would actually do it.

And, yes it is worth shutting it down. The power savings alone were significant. Rack space and floor space as well.
It also freed up a lot of spectrum for re-deployment for high speed data and other stuff that I'm not allowed to talk about yet.

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:Goodbuy car and brick phones

[TooMuchToDo]

It's easy in your story to put blame on the carrier. Not their fault though. If you're going to be flying somewhere and you're not absolutely sure of the coverage (and you're flying in fairly undeveloped areas), you need to get one of two things:

1) An iridium phone. They're not too expensive compared to other aircraft avionics. They work almost anywhere in the world. And you can get prepaid versions if you don't want a huge monthly fee.

2) An ELT. http://www.sportys.com/acb/showdetl.cfm?DID=19&Product_ID=7279

This satellite PLB is the smallest, most functional emergency transmitter available. In an emergency, it could quite simply save your life. It transmits on 406 MHz via the COSPAS-SARSAT satellite system with a registered unique, digitally encoded distress signal and 121.5 MHz homing frequency. Plus, onboard GPS acquires LAT/LON when the unit is activated, meaning search and rescue crews will know your location within 100 meters. It is unaffected by terrain, obstructions or weather, and works anywhere in the world. It is also buoyant and totally waterproof. Weighs just 12 oz. and measures 1 3/4"d x 5 3/4"h x 3"w. Powered by two lithium-ion batteries.

Yes, these two items are expensive. But no more then an annual on your plane or the radio equipment onboard. Blame rests solely on the pilot for the safety of himself and those who he/she carries.

Re:Why

[nacturation]

or QUILTER. OK, you win that one. QUILTER stands for Quilter Uses Iterative Language To Employ Recursion.

Re:OnStar

[tacocat]

Here we go again ladies and ladies. Strap on your aluminum boxers and hide in the basement. Mega-Corp is coming to get you again!!!

I'm so tired of hearing about all this ignorant spew about how evil all this technology is. So I'll just recap what's already been posted a hundred times about OnStar.

• It won't make you sterile.
• It won't put banner ads on the top of your windshield while you are driving.
• It can unlock your car if you want to.
• It won't call the mothership and tell Big Brother were you are.
• It will call OnStar as a 911 Emergency Service call if you activate your airbag via tree or some other appropriate activity (and have OnStar service).
• Once it is deactivated by Onstar (or you can rip it out of the car if you want) it cannot do any of the following:
  1. Call the mothership and tell Big Brother where you are. (Trick question -- it didn't before)
  2. unlock your doors.
  3. Cause you to go sterile -- that's your own problem. (Again, a trick question)
  4. It will let you quietly die in a serious accident because it doesn't work anymore.
  5. In fact, if you know anything about cellular telephony -- it will not register or accept pages after deactivation.

Despite all of these facts being repeated over and over I know that only 0.0001% of the aluminum boxer fan club will take any heed of this information. So kudo's to the one person who thinks.

Now, even though I work at GM/OnStar I should probably state that my opinions are statements are not necessarily a reflection of the opinions of GM/Onstar and as such GM/OnStar can not be held liable for anything I say, real or imagined, factual or fantasy.

So -- I can call you a jerk and get away with it. But I'm only going to call you a jerk after to slam me for working at GM/OnStar and that I'm obviously lying to keep the capitalistic pig corporations afloat despite all the evil things they do to babies and little furry animals. I only say this because I know someone will do just that in the next ten minutes. It happens every time.

Unfortunately, those who run around screaming such falsehoods do more damage for the cause of privacy and personal empowerment than they know -- for they appear as jerks and makes everyone else who says anything about privacy that much easier to dismiss.

NOT a mandatory shutdown.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is in fact not a mandatory analog shutdown, but the date that cellular phone companies are ALLOWED to decomission analog. They're required to keep analog UP until this date, not shut it down at that date. The good word from AT&T is they are shutting analog down as soon as allowed. Verizon, I've heard both that they are shutting it down ASAP and that they aren't (I'm guessing it's up to each Verizon region to decide if they do or not?). I thought US Cellular had specifically said they plan to keep analog up in some areas until at least 2012. And, local providers, they may decide if it's not broke, don't fix it.

          This doesn't negate the point of the article, since many places will lose analog. But, I'm guessing some of these ultra-rural desert and forest type situations, the local provider may keep analog up, at least for a while. Ultimately, though, there's no new equipment available, and indeed I've heard service parts are low too, so it'll have to go once it's unservicable.