Why is Verizon doing away with Analog phones?

How about the V66p, it will be tri-mode 800 analog, 800 digital, 1900 PCS digital.
-AG

 

Did I see V66, I meant V60...
Did I?
OOps!

 

it looks like the v60p and the audiovox 8600 will be hte last analog phones for verizon. verizons reasoning is that they have converted most of their network, and are converting the rest to digital so you will therefor no longer be needing analog. i think this is stupid, maybe in two years it would be good, but i still like to have that analog safety net.

 

May be Verizon thinks the Western part of the US is another country.

 

And also that people never vacation to the outer fringes of states, and especially our northern border...pretty annoying

 

well in some markets you can easily change the phone you use(change esns) online through vzserve so it makes sence to have all digital phones and you can keep an analog capable phone for back up or trips...i think they'll enable easy phone switching for the other markets soon as well...

 

you cant change your esn online in most of the markets which have analog coverage. in rural markets, or markets that include rural areas where analog is used, your not likely to be able to do this, because verizon only offers it in the more technologically advanced markets...

so no it doesnt make sense to do digital only. it would take nothing away from the phones...and its not like the phones cant come with it, verizon requested that several models which have analog, be disabled for amps before they would sell them...

it makes no sense. and the esn online change doesnt apply to most of the popel who would need analog. and even if it did. still no sense.

 

no hes wrong about that. a digital phone will only recieve a digital signal. i cant believe someone actually told you that.

if you buy an analog phone, verizon wont stop supporting it. they wont be selling them for long, but if you have one you can continue to use analog, and most likely, in a few years, 99% of everything will be digital and youll be allright with out analog (some people are now).
verizon isnt shooting itself in teh foot, it seems more like they are cutting their foot or something like that. in digital areas, service with an all digital phone is better, battery life is better, and most people dont realize that when they are getting bad call quality they are in analog. this is verizon trying to do better in digital areas, but neglecting rural areas and people who travel there. to their credit, verizon waited to do this until they converted most of their network (which is the most extensive nationwide) to digital, and are working to convert it all to digital. this should be completed soon.

 

Minor correction, Verizon waited till they could get the vast majority of its roaming partners all digital before they started releasing all digital phones.

 

thats correct too, but what i said is also true. verizon has converted many formerly analog areas to digital, and will complete this soon. and all of their roaming partners are not digital, only the ones on americas choice prls are.

 

I just came back from Vacation in Michigan about an hour northwest of Traverse City, had great Alltel digital coverage until I got 1/2 hour out of town I was analog are around were I was staying. I was happy then I decided to get the Vx4400 instead of the a530. I thought they were coverting over the last areas of analog in Wyoming, Colorado to Digital, I still need Analog for roaming, my next phone in a year or so I will then go all digital...

 

I could see them doing this if the entire country used CDMA. However, there are areas of the country that do not support CDMA. I was recently only about 30 minutes from my house but was technically in another county where Verizon has no coverage. I was able to get an Analog Roam though. I didn't plan on making calls but if an emergency occured I would have been able to place a call(which is good as it was night and the area was wooded and very rural). However, with all these competing digital standards, AMPS is the sole "standard" in the USA(though of course it doesn't work with GSM). So unless Verizon/Sprint can get CDMA coverage in areas where there currently isn't any, I'll never go with a phone that doesn't support analog.

 

dave,

i doubt youll find anybody to disagree with. in two years or so, the whole country will probably support cdma, or at least the vast majority of it. but today there are still areas in which cdma is not supported.

 

But.....What if you are in an area where TDMA is the only standard prevalent (a la Southern Vermont)
and since MOST if not all CDMA phones can't interline onto Digital TDMA...they won't be able to hop into Analog, and place the call...Ananlog is needed not for conversation everyday......but for emergencies.
Is it that expensive to keep Analog.

 

no its not and its not that they are removing analog from their towers, they cant until i think 2007 according to the fcc itll bne aroudn until at least then. also remember, you pay for the roaming charges when you go into another carriers network so your paying for it anyways. the smae thing is the case in northern minnesota. tdma is all that is there, and im sure as hell not gonna use tdma here,b tu when i vacation to wehre there is only tdma, i want to use my phone.

 

analog is too expensive to run. awe is getting rid of it in 4 years also. an awe fon can only roam off of a verizon analog and not digital. and vice versa. if i am wrong let me know. but that is what i have observed

 

In all truth, the reason why they are doing away with analog is all the new features being added to the phones. You can only put so much on a phone with the memory that it has available. That is what we were told at least.

 

Amps will work with GSM, it is just at the moment there are no GSM/Amps phones available. There were some a few years ago.

Today there are 2 that work with GSM - Nokia 6340i and the SonyEricsson T62u. Both are GSM/TDMA/Amps phones.

 

GSM does not work with AMPS, but CDMA does. GSM cannot hand off a call to anything BUT GSM. However, if you are using a CDMA phone, your call can be handed off from CDMA to AMPS (but not the other way around.

GSM -hands off to-> GSM
TDMA -hands off to-> TDMA, AMPS
CDMA -hands off to-> CDMA, AMPS
AMPS -hands off to-> AMPS, TDMA

 

Umm......I think you mean they will co-exist in the same band or have a dual mode handset for areas not served by GSM? I think that would be what you are trying to say, correct? The two phones you list are bridges to migrate from TDMA to GSM. GSM is TDMA with FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access) plus frequency hopping, and advanced timing algorithms (basically on steroids). GSM and AMPS co-exist in many markets right now, in the same carrier's spectrum. So do AMPS and CDMA in others. I guess I don't understand what exactly you meant by that statement....

As far as Verizon's fazing out of AMPS, I don't know why the rush. You would think they would keep it around, for public safety reasons.

 

A couple years back you could get an analog "sleeve" for the Nokia 5190/6190 that would give the phone the ability to roam onto AMPS networks. There was also an Ericsson phone as well that had the analog capability built into it. VoiceStream offered the service at a roaming rate of $0.49 a minute.

Basically, what he is saying is that their are(were) GSM phones that would work with AMPS.

 

amps and gsm coexisting. is quite different than them working together.

as people said, a call acnnot be handed off from gsm to amps and vice versa....

so technically they dont work together.

 

There will be benefits to getting rid of analog, theres too much static with analog anyways. GSM phones have always been lighter, but CDMA phones will soon all be as light or lighter than GSM phones because they wont have to have analog support. And when carriers start turning analog off, spectrum is freed for use for digital, which is a good thing, solves compacity issues that digital has in some places.

 

no one is saying that analog is a superior technology, and no one will cry when its gone, as long as were ready for it to to. but right now we are not, there are still large portions of the country without digital coverage.

there are some extremely small phones capable of supporting analog, so i disagree with that being a major issue. they may be lighter though...the samsung a640 coming out for sprint however is under 3oz with tri-band support.

 

Not only that, but look at all the times CDMA phones switch to analog when the signal gets very low. Digital can only deal with poor signal up to a point. I'd rather have a static-filled call with me repeating things a few times than no service at all. You can pull words out of static, but you can't hear a thing through complete silence or a barrage of digital artifacts which make things worse.