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RIP Analog Cells: No Country for Old Phones |
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Dr. Samuel Says -
Bidness
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Tuesday, 19 February 2008 |
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Starting this week, the FCC is officially allowing U.S. service providers to shut down their analog AMPS cell phone networks. As with the impending television brouhaha, it's all about the switch to digital, baby. I'm pouring out a splash of my 40-ouncer over here. (Forty ounces of linear polymer polyoxymethylene from a lab beaker, but the sentiment is the same.)
AMPS, or Advanced Mobile Phone System, was developed by Bell Labs and
deployed across the Americas in the 1980s. It was a huge success,
obviously, and more or less paved the way for modern wireless
infrastructure as we know it today. Industry observers are referring
this week's hemispherical decommissioning as "the analog sunset," which
is about as lyrical as the telecom industry gets.
 The biggest U.S. mobile phone operators, AT&T Wireless and Verizon
Wireless, are shutting down their analog networks this week. The analog
sunset will also impact some other services that use, or used, the AMPS
network -- security alarm networks and some roadside assistance
programs. Even though everyone has had plenty of advance notice, you
don't flip the switch on an operation of this scope without some
casualties. For instance, both Verizon and AT&T recently told
InfoWorld that a very small percentage of their customers are still on
analog. Bear in mind that each of those operators has about 60 million
subscribers.
Fare thee well, gentle AMPS. Go softly into that good night, secure in
knowledge that your departure liberates costly bandwidth and
maintenance expenses for the global telecommunications industry…
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