Is your local Analog cellular network turned off yet?

VzW's analog seems to be disappearing slowly here in Los Angeles.

 

The following post is also in this thread: VZW Users

...

Analog roaming is now over for Alltel customers.

It looks like Alltel has already made a PRL that erases roaming on Verizon's Analog Network.
With Alltel's newest PRL (20029 & 30029), I cannot use Verizon's Analog netork.

In the older PRLs (up to 20008 & 30008) I was able to roam on Verizon's analog network.

Now, When I try to make a call on Verizon's analog network, I get the following error message:

"Welcome to Verizon Wireless, Please hold, your call is being forwarded to a cellular operator.
You make a credit card, calling card, or collect call. Announcement 13, 0139-025"
And then it just hangs up.

The end is now for Alltel customers who want to roam on analog. Analog roaming is over.
The only analog left for Alltel is it's own, but that will be shutdown soon.

 

I just set my Motorola V710 for Verizon to "Analog Only," here, in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. (at&t has both 800 channels in this area.) My phone cannot find an analog signal in either "Automatic 'A' or 'B.'"

My Verizon PRL on that phone is 50863.

 

I thought the same thing. That is why I included my PRL in my post.

I will see if I can find an analog signal with an old, unlocked Nokia 6340i (GAIT) phone.

 

I cannot access that information with my Nokia 6340i. When I insert an at&t SIM card, that card disables my menu choice to select a network. When I insert a T-Mobile SIM card, I gain the ability to select a network. I see at&t and T-Mobile networks, but do not have the ability to see whether an analog signal is available.

That information may be available when I activate "Field Test," but I cannot interpret many of the Field Test screens. Can anyone tell me which Field Test screen, and what to look for?

 

not sure on Gait if you can toggle back and forth between GSM and TDMA/Analog for the test mode.

Normally on GSM you will see a BCCH or CCCH and you will see a -DB reading such as
-83 which will normally get you full bars. A band GSM will be 133 to about 180 for your channel number.

If you see TDMA you will see a DCCH channel number and it will say camping underneath it.
These numbers tend to be 700 to 1000 for the channel number

Analog you will see ACH it you are on a analog beacon.

On most nokias you can see all this on page 1-1

 

On Page 1-1, I see the following:

131 -86 xxx
0 4 x xxxx
18 19 85
CCCH


On Page 21-02, I see:

ACCH
xxxxx
0


There is no other reference to ACCH.

 

I've got an easy way to find out a possible timeframe when a network will be shut off.

Find someone who is using an analog phone and see if they've gotten a letter from their carrier since the FCC is requiring carriers to notify their customers 4 months in advance and again at 30 days before the network is turned off.

Analog-to-Digital Transition for Wireless Telephone Service

I'm not sure if this rule applies to people with analog only plans, but it sure doesn't sound that way. It sounds like if a carrier knows which customers have analog/digital phones activated, they must send them a letter.

Dan

 

Alltel got rid of there analog around my area last year around late march. Don't know about cell one (at&t now)

 

The page 1 you have is GSM 850 A Band. -86 is your power which is almost full bars
the first set of XXX on the top row is your tower power which only show up when on a call.
the 0 on the second row is your radio time slot 0 signifies the controll channel.
The CCCH is carrier control channel.

ACCH could be the analog control channel on that phone, most of the ones I seen were ACH for control and AVCH.

On most Nokias if your press an hold the star key for 5 seconds you will get a description of what the numbers mean.

 

got a question for yall, was there digital service in the same area as analog before analog was shut down?

im on vzw in the bay area and my analog seems to be the same, if not being stronger
still can make calls on vzw network, but i got one question, took an un activated phone and forced it in roam, got this error message "We do not reconize your moble number as an autherized user, if your a new customer and receive this recording in error, dial 611 for support....." any one know what company this is? because i can get 4-6 bars with these guys most the time.

 

By Law they cant turn it off. They probably removed it from their PRL so only analog only phones can use it. The FCC has been allowing carriers to cut back the analog as its not required to cover as many people as it did before.

I have been on Alltels and Centennials analog. In a couple of the areas I have been Alltel (centurytel area) TDMA.

 

well did some reading, by law they must have analog in my area because digital is not fully enstablished in my area. the analog signal is better than the digital. by law there must be some form of cellular tecnology in the area were analog is, if there is, the cellular company may shut off the analog network. the digital signal must be equal or higher before the can phase out amps in my area. sssoooooo, by law i must be able to use the current amps network util they make the digital network equal to the analog coverage wise.


well for all those wondering about analog in there area, i'll break it down.

If you have both analog and digital, and digital service covers the same or greater amount of area, the cellular company may shutdown there analog network

if you have both analog and digital or analog only and analog is covers greater area than digital or analog is the only avalible technology, than by law, analog must be kept running

 

I have been dealing with this alittle lately, be had 2 towers not far from each other so we didnt up grade one from Analog to GSM because there was a GSM tower a couple of miles down the road. But the GSM tower is 1900 so when the analog goes down it wont have the minimum blanket of coverage so we had to upgrade that other tower to 850 GSM.

The requirement are real vague by the FCC. It doesnot have to be the same exact signal level as analog. The limit is -110 signal coverage but most carriers have the handsets to drop the call once the signal goes to -107 be cause the uplink from the phone to the tower goes to crap. Higher numbers are bad, lower good. Full bar is approx around -83-84 depending on phone. So basically your phone could be at the 110 min but not let you register on the network.

 

More that likely you are on the old GTE Mobility Network. Hit 611 and sees what happens.
The GTE equipment (analog) will be at the same tower as Verizon and usually in the same building.

 

wasn't GTE bought off by verizon? if thats the case, i shouldn't get charged for roaming, right?

 

Verizon was a merger of sorts between GTE and Airtouch and a few others and the joined companies changed their name to Verizon. So no roaming.

 

In Tallahassee, FL, the analog providers, Alltel and AT&T, both have their analog on as of now. I made some test calls from my old inactive VX3300. My AX4270 often goes into analog at work if I dont force the phone into 'CDMA only' mode.

 

In my area, Alltel's analog network is still operable. My mother's LG AX-275 switches to analog frequently in her work (a hospital) if she doesn't force it to CDMA only mode. Often, I'll call her and definitely can tell she's on analog with static galore in the background.

 

I was just roaming around Nevada and there were several analog only alltel towers left. 4 in california, and 4-5 in nevada.
Also verizon had an analog only tower in Rachel nevada. My alltel phone worked fine on it. Im in LA most of the time and really havent noticed it going away. Yet...

They dont include those people who have tri mode phones and are way outside the digital radius that drive up the road everyday to that hot spot where they can call out.
There are a LOT of people who are going to loose service. Just wait and see, its going to be interesting.

 

im gona say a few things...
1. Analog is like the duct tape and nails that hold wireless together. without it there will patchy signals and less coverage

2. im possitive there will be analog still in waste land areas because there is no point of upgrading them when there few people that will use it, and the people who do are often spread apart. as we should know an 800mhz fequency will travel farther than an 1900mhz one, assumming they have the same situations (hills, weather, cellphone quality, line of sight, and so on)

3. There are more people in the cities than wasteland areas, what the survice providers are probly talking about are city slickers living in digital areas were everyone uses digital and almost know one uses analog, but that doesn't mean that there not affected. went south to sanfransico and noticed that there still parts of the city that have analog only.

i'll add more later

 

Look at it this way... once they shut it down in the cities they'll have tons of spares to maintain the boondocks.

 

They would have to, My company is running Lucent and Nortel Analog and TDMA and they dont support the stuff anymore.

Most of our my area my company and Alltel have overlayed all of our analog and for the most part Digital has better coverage. There are a couple spots were we picked up a couple of smaller companies were GSM is 1900 and maybe 100 foot tall and down the road 2 miles will be an analog only tower thats 400 foot tall.

Analog wont effect GSM customers as much cause most of gotten use to the fact of not being able to use it. That was always one of my pet peeves is not having a tri band Analog/TDMA and GSM phone similar to the GAIT phones.

For those Alltel areas that is the old Western Wireless turf. If you look at the Requirements for Alltels buyout, if there speed up their E911 efforts they wont have their Federal assistance restricted. Alot of those Alltel sites are Analog repeaters up in the mountains. (sometimes called extenders) Those counties must not be E911 capable or Alltel is getting the crap fined out of them for not being E911 capable on those analog towers.

I probably wont be able to make an analog call as my company will run TDMA till the end and my phone cant switch back and forth manually. The TDMA is not much better My call will be clearer but any electronics near me better watch out.

 

No not yet. It's on. I forced a call today. I think Verizon will wait until the last day because they support OnStar.

 

OnStar ended support for Analog customers on 12/31/2007.

ONSTAR | ANALOG-TO-DIGITAL TRANSITION

Carriers will begin turning off their analog equipment when they're legally able to do so.

 

Well Verizon analog is still on here regardless.

 

Verizon still carries CDMA+analog phones. The Samsung SCH U340 and the Motorola W315 are the only recent models that are tri mode (that I'm aware of).

On Alltel, the 2 VZW phones I mentioned along with the LG 145 (and maybe the 275) are also tri mode. The U340 is known as the Snap on Alltel. I am sure Sprint has some as well, I just dont know which ones.

So there, tri mode phones are still made and supported by the CDMA carriers.

By the way, the E815 is an all digital phone; no analog.