Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: motcid!king@uunet.uu.net (Steven King)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Is Analog Cellular Dead?
Message-ID: <8826@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 9 Jun 90 12:54:31 GMT
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In article <8797@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon <john@zygot.ati.com> writes:

>As I started to attract the attention of a salestype, the sinking
>feeling hit. With the rush to develop digital cellular, buying any
>currently available cellular radio would be a major mistake. The
>question concerning its obsolescence is not "if" but "how soon?"

Fear not, good gentle.  There is is HUGE base of people out there who
have analog phones.  Cellular operators can't expect them all to buy
new phones overnight.  They'll start by installing a few digital
channels and gradually phasing out the analog.  I suspect that you'll
still be able to get an analog channel anywhere you go for many, many
years.

>Or else we will have the standard electronics industry fix: make the
>customer carry around a bulky "multi-lingual" radio until the
>manufacturers and service providers decide just what they are going to
>do and when they are going to do it.

Give that man a cee-gar!  I suspect that in the near future you'll
have your choice of buying a pure-analog, a pure-digital, or a hybrid
mobile.  With the mixture of analog and digital channels available the
hybrid shouldn't be strictly necessary, but it has the advantage of
pure-digital in that you can enjoy the benefits of digital where
that's available and still be able to use it in service areas that
haven't upgraded yet.  (Yes, I know that the "benefits" of digital
from the user perspective are debatable.  Let's not open that up
again, eh?)

You sound like you don't like this idea.  Can you suggest an
alternative?  As I see it, a gradual phase-in is very much preferable
to an overnight switch to the new technology.

>Frankly, I am so put off by this sudden about face ("suddenly we can't
>do without digital") that I may just keep my GE Mini until there is no
>more analog service, and then just do without. I hope other cellular
>users vote with their pocketbooks as well.

Why the hostility here?  No one will be forcing you to go to digital,
at least not for a very long time.  As I said, I don't think the
operating companies can afford to blow off the huge installed base of
analog customers.  The main purpose of digital (as I see it, anyway;
yes, I am involved with cellular, but only tangentially with digital)
is to squeeze some extra channels out of a limited amount of
bandwidth.  A purely digital system has three times the number of
channels that an analog system does.  THAT'S why we "suddenly can't do
without digital".  The airwaves are getting full!


Steve King, Motorola Cellular  (...uunet!motcid!king)