Good news for Verizon Customers...

[rockstar]

Found this to be good news for Verizon custs... Now they'll have to update your handsets to keep up with an ever improving digital market

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WASHINGTON—The Bush administration, under pressure from industry to find spectrum for third-generation wireless systems, said it supports a five-year transition period to phase out the analog cellular requirement.

“The original rationale for the analog transmission requirement is no longer applicable and may thwart competition,” stated Nancy Victory, director of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, in a July 12 letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell.
The FCC is considering eliminating the analog cellular rule—originally designed to foster nationwide mobile phone roaming—in its biennial review of wireless regulations. A decision is expected soon.

In May, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) urged Powell to take a gradual approach to ending the rule because millions of Americans rely on analog cellular for mobile-phone service and vehicular emergency service, like General Motors’ OnStar.

Hollings said analog cellular service is important to disabled persons because there is not a widespread solution to incompatibility between digital phones and hearing aids. Moreover, Hollings said rural analog subscribers would be disproportionately disadvantaged because they may not be able to use phones when travelling to large cities.

[LabMonkey]

doesn' t that mean we have to spend more to get a new phone?