12-23-2007, 12:00 AM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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US Analog Network Shutting Down - GPRS Next?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22362058/
"When Adele Rothman bought her 16-year-old son a car in 2003, she made sure to pick one that had OnStar, the onboard communications and safety system. What the Scarsdale, N.Y., resident didn't know was that the OnStar system in the car was already doomed to die. The federal government decided in 2002 to let cellular carriers shut down analog cell phone networks, used by Rothman's Saab and about 500,000 other OnStar-equipped cars, after Feb. 18, 2008."
I doubt too many readers here have analog cell phones, but you might have an analog cellular service and not know it. GM's OnStar and many home alarm systems still use the analog networks and come Feb 19, 2008, they will cease operating. Raises interesting questions to industries developing products with very long lives.
"Purpura said the next generation of wireless devices could be 10 times as big, making the challenge of the next transition even greater. He said GPRS, or General Packet Radio Service, could be the next network to go, since this relatively slow second-generation digital technology isn't compatible with newer cellular broadband networks. "I don't think anyone wants to go through this again in five years," Purpura said."
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12-23-2007, 04:47 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 60
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Does this mean the FCC will finally lift that ever so idiotic ban on unblocked radio scanners and manufacturers will finally be able to sell unblocked scanners in the U.S.?
:roll:
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12-29-2007, 08:04 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 110
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Wow - I didn't know analogue mobiles were still in use in many places! TACS and ETACS are now obsolete in Europe, having been replaced by the GSM system. Here in the UK the last ETACS service was shutdown on 31 May 2001!
Cheers
Alan 
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