End of AMPS next month?

A sales weasel at the local VZW store told me they are pulling the plug on
analog service on Feb 18, 2008. Now of course he was trying real hard to get
me to scrap my battered but still reliable trusty 5 year old tri-mode phone.
(I didn't).

So....true-- or not true?

"Butch Haynes" <Butch@huntsville> wrote in
news:dpedneoUMs7P8AfanZ2dnUVZ_r6rnZ2d@comcast.com:

> So....true-- or not true?

Not true. Across VAST areas of America, AMPS is STILL the KING!

God bless 'im for tryin', though.....

I don't know where the propaganda machine told them if AMPS is turned off
their little digital toyphones are gonna work lots and lots better. Of
course, AMPS uses totally different channels than the toyphones, so this is
crap.

Until SELLular puts up towers across the vast rural areas of America to
service the toyphone 2 mile footprint, which isn't going to happen any time
soon, AMPS will still be there for you...and the emergency bagphones in all
my vehicles.

POWER is our friend!

On 2008-01-25, Butch Haynes <Butch@huntsville> wrote:
> So....true-- or not true?

There's two ways to take that question. If you are asking if all
AMPS in the US will be shut down after February, that is truly unlikely
and Verizon has no control over that anyway.

If you are asking how long Verizon's customers will be able use AMPS
after February, however, I don't know the answer to that but that is
something Verizon has full control over and gets to decide.
Verizon sells almost no AMPS-capable phones now, and if retaining
the capability is making people keep older phones then making
the coverage unavailable might help persuade them otherwise (with
fewer complaints about any coverage lost since everyone knows
the AMPS network is going away on February 18).

Dennis Ferguson

At 25 Jan 2008 18:15:45 -0500 Butch Haynes wrote:
> A sales weasel at the local VZW store told me they are pulling the plug
on
> analog service on Feb 18, 2008...
>
> So....true-- or not true?


Both. That's the day (or sometime around then) when the FCC lifts the
REQUIREMENT for 800MHz carriers to offer AMPS. Some carriers, like AT&T,
will pull the plug immediately, since their customer base is on GSM with no
analog backup, so their analog service only benefits roamers- not their own
customers.

Verizon will likely dismantle AMPS in the metro areas right away, plus
anywhere else they feel digital coverage is as good as analog, but that's
not a problem for a tri-mode user like you. Small rural carriers who have
customers still using AMPS equipment will likely keep it up for as long as
it's profitable- those are really the only places you need it anyway
(roaming), so you'll probably see no difference in service after the shutoff.
Verizon's only competitive strength is 'The Network' so you can rest
assured they won't do anything to jeopardize it! ;-)

Good point, Todd. I never thought of it that way as far as "The Network".

I gave up my last tri-mode for my "upgrade" from my e815 to a v3m. Hate to
admit it, but I haven't missed AMPS in a year.

That said, I haven't traveled rurally to any extent this past year either.

I would certainly hope VZW saw the mistake T-Mo made at the beginning, where
their coverage was OK in the metro areas, but not in the fringes, where
untold millions of us live. The reputation as an "urban" provider crippled
them from the start. To this day, talk to anyone 50 miles from the nearest
big city, you'll find few T-Mo customers, even with their jazzy
handsets.....

......And let's face it, carryover minutes, even with their limitations,
would have been be a powerful draw for ATTWS/Cingular, if they had the
network to back it up. They stepped on their own feet with the "fewest
dropped calls" thing too....we all knew they were grasping at straws, and
you could only fool so many new customers into signing up, until they
started saying "fewest dropped calls, MY A$$".

From a purely selfish point of view, I'm 98%+ percent a voice caller, so
VZW's high charges for data and other features are actually a good
thing.....things like that piss off the data users, and keep them with other
carriers, thereby helping keep the market competitive and VZW on their toes.

Gotta look at the big picture.....

Dean




"Todd Allcock" <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in message
news:fndv87$ej$1@aioe.org...
> At 25 Jan 2008 18:15:45 -0500 Butch Haynes wrote:
>> A sales weasel at the local VZW store told me they are pulling the plug
> on
>> analog service on Feb 18, 2008...
>>
>> So....true-- or not true?
>
>
> Both. That's the day (or sometime around then) when the FCC lifts the
> REQUIREMENT for 800MHz carriers to offer AMPS. Some carriers, like AT&T,
> will pull the plug immediately, since their customer base is on GSM with
> no
> analog backup, so their analog service only benefits roamers- not their
> own
> customers.
>
> Verizon will likely dismantle AMPS in the metro areas right away, plus
> anywhere else they feel digital coverage is as good as analog, but that's
> not a problem for a tri-mode user like you. Small rural carriers who have
> customers still using AMPS equipment will likely keep it up for as long as
> it's profitable- those are really the only places you need it anyway
> (roaming), so you'll probably see no difference in service after the
> shutoff.
> Verizon's only competitive strength is 'The Network' so you can rest
> assured they won't do anything to jeopardize it! ;-)
>
>
>

here's a littl inside information, alot of the analog towers that vzw owns are going to be converted over to digital. But users still using analog will be ok because of the tower sharing, you can still get AMPS service on your VZW phone just not off a VZW tower.

Trinary wrote:
> here's a littl inside information, alot of the analog towers that vzw
> owns are going to be converted over to digital. But users still using
> analog will be ok because of the tower sharing, you can still get AMPS
> service on your VZW phone just not off a VZW tower.

And WHO'S tower is going to be providing the analog service?

Todd Allcock wrote:
> At 25 Jan 2008 18:15:45 -0500 Butch Haynes wrote:
>> A sales weasel at the local VZW store told me they are pulling the plug
> on
>> analog service on Feb 18, 2008...
>>
>> So....true-- or not true?
>
>
> Both. That's the day (or sometime around then) when the FCC lifts the
> REQUIREMENT for 800MHz carriers to offer AMPS. Some carriers, like AT&T,
> will pull the plug immediately, since their customer base is on GSM with no
> analog backup, so their analog service only benefits roamers- not their own
> customers.
>
> Verizon will likely dismantle AMPS in the metro areas right away, plus
> anywhere else they feel digital coverage is as good as analog, but that's
> not a problem for a tri-mode user like you. Small rural carriers who have
> customers still using AMPS equipment will likely keep it up for as long as
> it's profitable- those are really the only places you need it anyway
> (roaming), so you'll probably see no difference in service after the shutoff.


And even those carriers saw the light. I visit some friends in a rural
area and the roaming partner is a small local carrier. About 2 years ago
they added digital on their towers and then plopped in a bunch of sites
to fill things in. My digital only phone works fine there.


> Verizon's only competitive strength is 'The Network' so you can rest
> assured they won't do anything to jeopardize it! ;-)
>
>
>

> .....And let's face it, carryover minutes, even with their limitations,
> would have been be a powerful draw for ATTWS/Cingular, if they had the
> network to back it up. They stepped on their own feet with the "fewest
> dropped calls" thing too....we all knew they were grasping at straws, and
> you could only fool so many new customers into signing up, until they
> started saying "fewest dropped calls, MY A$$".

Absolutely correct. I dropped them like the calls they dropped on me. This
being utterly unreliable coverage spanning from DC to Annapolis and
Baltimore. To say nothing of their unreliable data network coverage in the
same area. VZW is a pain in the ass, but at lleast they have coverage where
I actually need it.

>Across VAST areas of America,

Big areas without sufficient customer numbers. Expect them to ditch AMPS,
and soon.

On 2008-01-26, Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote:
> Verizon's only competitive strength is 'The Network' so you can rest
> assured they won't do anything to jeopardize it! ;-)

I don't know. Verizon's own network is fine, but they've never been
shy about removing roaming coverage they don't like from their plans.

For my favorite example look at 94020 on the Verizon and Sprint
coverage maps. There's AT&T AMPS(/TDMA?) towers in there which
Verizon was fine with removing from ACII even though they had
nothing of their own in there. The friends I have who live in
94020 use Sprint to get coverage at home.

Speaking of that, this isn't the only place in the country where
I've noticed AT&T towers with no GSM. I keep wondering whether
AT&T just has a really long ToDo list of things they want to get
to, or whether they've decided there are places where trying to
maintain coverage is bad for margins so they're waiting for the
chance to get rid of it altogether.

Dennis Ferguson

Butch Haynes wrote:
> A sales weasel at the local VZW store told me they are pulling the plug on
> analog service on Feb 18, 2008. Now of course he was trying real hard to get
> me to scrap my battered but still reliable trusty 5 year old tri-mode phone.
> (I didn't).
>
> So....true-- or not true?
>
>
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts...cellphone.html

Butch Haynes wrote:
> A sales weasel at the local VZW store told me they are pulling the plug on
> analog service on Feb 18, 2008. Now of course he was trying real hard to get
> me to scrap my battered but still reliable trusty 5 year old tri-mode phone.
> (I didn't).
>
> So....true-- or not true?

Yes, Verizon will turn off AMPS service next month. Also, with ACII,
there has been very limited AMPS roaming onto other carriers; you used
to be able to see the huge differences in coverage between AC and ACII,
but they took down those maps.

However there will still be a _lot_ of rural AMPS for the foreseeable
future. If you were on ACI you could still use it, presumably as paid
off-network roaming. Worst case, as least you can use it for 911, even
with ACII.

There are several places where all you can get is analog. Maybe they
can turn it off in the big cities, but not in extremely rural regions!

Diamond Dave wrote:
> There are several places where all you can get is analog. Maybe they
> can turn it off in the big cities, but not in extremely rural regions!

Legally, they're not supposed to turn it off unless digital is providing
coverage everywhere that AMPS was providing coverage, but I'm sure that
the carriers have no intention of following the FCC's rules.