Techs & Trends
Replying to: Digital vs Tri-mode phones? by caddyman
Re: Digital vs Tri-mode phones?
From mountain wireless refering to the issue in general and specifically to the mountain states:
Analog will be with us for some time. The FCC mandate is 2/17/2008, which may be extended yet again. But many carriers in the west get thousands in revenue from analog roamers, so they are not in any hurry to cut this off. Also, OnStar uses analog in all cars until the mid-2004 model year.
The "push" to all-digital phones is led by manufacturers who are trying to pack all these hot new features into ever smaller phones, and feel like analog could be dropped out, and carriers want to keep customers happy by offering these feature-packed phones. But that does not mean analog towers will be going away even if the FCC no longer requires it.
Analog is still helpful and useful in Colorado and surrounding states, and we need to balance cool phones with good coverage. There are carriers within 25 miles of Denver who are analog-only. SHould we choose not having service versus a camera in our phones? I choose service. If forced, some carriers will choose one digital standard over another, leaving a certain group of roamers out in the cold. Analog keeps this from happening.
I do wish we settled on a national standard, however, the standard most likely chosen would have been TDMA, which has turned out to be inferior. AT&T wanted to switch to CDMA, but were influenced to choose GSM by their Asian investor, DoCoMo, which turned out to be one more mistake in the long history of AT&T miss-steps. We as a nation will suffur among incompatible technologies, however, it does appear to be all evolving to W-CDMA. Until then, analog is all we have as a common technology.
Analog will be with us for some time. The FCC mandate is 2/17/2008, which may be extended yet again. But many carriers in the west get thousands in revenue from analog roamers, so they are not in any hurry to cut this off. Also, OnStar uses analog in all cars until the mid-2004 model year.
The "push" to all-digital phones is led by manufacturers who are trying to pack all these hot new features into ever smaller phones, and feel like analog could be dropped out, and carriers want to keep customers happy by offering these feature-packed phones. But that does not mean analog towers will be going away even if the FCC no longer requires it.
Analog is still helpful and useful in Colorado and surrounding states, and we need to balance cool phones with good coverage. There are carriers within 25 miles of Denver who are analog-only. SHould we choose not having service versus a camera in our phones? I choose service. If forced, some carriers will choose one digital standard over another, leaving a certain group of roamers out in the cold. Analog keeps this from happening.
I do wish we settled on a national standard, however, the standard most likely chosen would have been TDMA, which has turned out to be inferior. AT&T wanted to switch to CDMA, but were influenced to choose GSM by their Asian investor, DoCoMo, which turned out to be one more mistake in the long history of AT&T miss-steps. We as a nation will suffur among incompatible technologies, however, it does appear to be all evolving to W-CDMA. Until then, analog is all we have as a common technology.
Replies
- Re: Digital vs Tri-mode phones? by BowWowWow
- Re: Digital vs Tri-mode phones? by sammy2
