Long live analog

When you have a full analog signal though, you CANNOT beat the call quality.

 

Yes, that is true, unless you are still in an area that is analog only...

 

Welcome to Kentucky and Maine...I'd be in trouble since my i600 and Blackberry are digital only...but no fear, I'll grab the gsp-1600 satellite phone out of the glove box and have it covered.

Man I don't miss analog at all.

When we lived in Martinsville VA my wife worked in Roanoke and would drive home on 220 (nice curvy highway) and I could tell exactly where she was by the sound quality of the call, there was one point where she would drive for about 1/2 mile when we could not hear each other, but the call would not drop, I always knew she was 15 minutes from home when that happened.

 

Man, I wish I had that special ability...that's pretty cool...

 

I agree with GoodmanR. I have been lucky enough to use some great analog networks (Alltel, & Mohave Wireless), and the sound quality is great. Without a doubt digital is much better over all.

 

Without a doubt digital is the way to go but analog is a good safety net to have when you need it but I remember on my old airtouch phone from like 8 yrs ago I would get static & a crackling sound during calls

 

Yep, analog makes a good backup when you can't afford a sat phone and are stuck in the middle of no where and have to make a call.

 

Analog works good from 12,000 mountain tops. I was at this elevation, can see the tower 35 miles away. Phone was recieving a digital signal, could not make the call. Forced the phone into analog, worked perfect!

 

NAMPS improved on the 1 caller per channel thing, and split the 30 mhz of each channel into three 10 mhz parts, so essentially you could carry three calls where only one would fit before. Up here, Verizon (and before them GTE, and before them Contel) is running NAMPS, and support caller id and vmwi.

 

So if whe im on analog and caller ID works, Verizon and ATT are running NAMPS?

 

The IS-136 standard was where the caller ID and VM indicator came into play for analog cell site equipment. The cell site DOES NOT have to be NAMPS for this to work, it just has to be an IS-136 compatible radio on the Control (or Signalling) channel. Back in '97, we had to change out a bunch of radios so Caller ID and MWI would work on our customer's TDMA phones in analog mode. More of a software/hardware revision thing.

 

The problem with NAMPS is that it suffered from cross-channel interference in crowded environments. Sometimes you could hear the conversation in the channel next to you. In addition, the sound quality was not nearly as good as the original AMPS.

 

Analog is the only true cellular backup that provides almost true nationwide coverage. It's the backbone of the infrastructure, without it, nothing would be possible, and we would not have the high standards of CDMA, GSM, TDMA, iDEN, etc. without it. Let's hear it for analog!

Pritesh

 

Sorry, but that's incorrect. Analog only set the foundation for TDMA and CDMA. For GSM and iDEN, you don't need analog or any components of an analog network at all.

 

Bobolito, you are correct that GSM and iDEN were not built on analog, but analog was the forerunner for all current terrestrial systems. Assuming this, analog was also the basis for GSM and iDEN.

The concept of the "cell" is consistent throughout today's wireless networks whether they use the ANSI 41 or the MAP core.

 

Alright, it appears I was wrong somewhere in my rambling, but I'm sure you guys will set it straight in time.

Pritesh

 

The first AMPS system (sys ID 0001) was in the Chicago area, installed by Motorola in late 1978 and ran a trial under an STA during 1979 according to FCC records.

AMPS systems were first opened to general use by operators in 1981.
GSM standard was first developed in 1988/89, and then the buildout began in 1991. Before GSM, there was ETACS, an analog system that was the predominant system in Europe. Other analog systems such as NMT450, a UHF 450MHz band system that was used in Scandanavian countries before GSM.

As a side, analog FM is still the primary mode of transmission in other parts of the radio spectrum than any digital. In the public safety world, analog is still dominant for reasons of reliability, cost of maintenance, and interoperability. Most other SMR's still use analog FM (LTR, EDACS, etc) and it will be around for quite some time. Outside the cellular/PCS world, digital RF is still in it's infancy.

 

Just because AMPS came first, it doesn't mean that the development of GSM was dependent on Analog.

 

reminds me of the first cordless phones...

 

I remember those. The old kind where my play walkie-talkie would pick up the conversation. That dosent happen much anymore, does it.

 

Convert those Analog Channels to Digital and you'll Have CAPACITY Relief.
Other countries have done it, Why not the USA?

 

Well, one reason is there are still a lot of people using analog phones, also, carriers are required by the FCC to keep analog on until I believe 2007 or 2008.

 

Not to mention that many "all-digital" countries really aren't as rural (in terms of land area) as the United States. It's not nearly as hard to cover all of rural France in GSM towers as it would be to put up enough sites for adaquate coverage all over the Great Basin and Great Plains, west Texas, etc. of the US. Since old analog phones have a much higher wattage output than new digital phones, companies would need to put up a lot more towers to allow newer phones to make use of the signals too.

 

Some more good points Matt, though now that I think of it Australia recently turned off their last analog sites, and they have some pretty rural and isolated areas, most of the interior is about as wild and open as anything here, if not more so.

 

But is the digital coverage comparable to what it was before they shut off analog? If so, that's great.