  morboComplete Your Transaction
join:2002-01-22
00000 | people are lazyco-worker was on the old motient blackberry network despite coverage being the worst imaginable. they finally sent a letter saying they were going to stop service. that's when the switch happened.  now service with new provider is amazing nationwide and even in developing countries. | |
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 | | | Re: people are lazy Just dump TDMA altogether then they have to switch. Florida is all GSM on Cingular. I'm almost out of contract with another provider and probably will go prepaid since my home phone gets far more calls and am sick of being tethered to a cellphone everywhere.
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Saving the world keeps me busy. However, I find Earth very primitive from my home planet of Krypton.
-Supergirl | |
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| |  rawgerzThe hell was that?Premium
join:2004-10-03
Grove City, PA | Re: people are lazy I'm surprised GSM isn't on it's way out yet | |
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|  wifi4milezBig Russ, 1918 to 2008. Rest in Peace
join:2004-08-07
New York, NY | I think you mean the mobitext network that blackberry's used to run on. I know someone who used his old blackberry until very recently for one main reason; the mobitext network worked on airplanes. Yes, it means you could send/receive emails while flying. Now I am sure that many of you would never want this, however he is a very successful business man who enjoys being in constant contact almost as much as he enjoys making money (I share this sentiment with him )
Either way, the newer advanced networks cant match this feature of a fairly old technology. Sometimes things do not get better as time goes on!
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я люблю Денди! | |
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| |  digiblurGot Sipura?Premium
join:2002-06-03
Louisiana | Re: people are lazy Nope... it was Motient.
Several years ago I knew the network was on the way out when one of it is largest customers, UPS, was quietly switching out the radios in the driver delivery boards from Motient to GPRS radios. Now they've switched out most of them to CDMA.
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Make your Sipura speak. »www.voipurize.com
And now for the PAP2-NA and unlocked PAP2's. | |
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| | | wifi4milezBig Russ, 1918 to 2008. Rest in Peace
join:2004-08-07
New York, NY | Re: people are lazy said by digiblur:Nope... it was Motient. Several years ago I knew the network was on the way out when one of it is largest customers, UPS, was quietly switching out the radios in the driver delivery boards from Motient to GPRS radios. Now they've switched out most of them to CDMA. Not to confuse the issue, but here is what I found out. Both Mobitex and Motient were/are networks that Blackberrys run on. In the US, they ran using the old Mobitex network that was run by the OLD AT&T, then Cingular, now ATT again. In Canada, Bell Canada used a network called DataTAC, which was "commonly" called Motient instead of using Mobitex. Both were running at approximately the same time, although they were not compatible with one another. Strangely, DataTAC/Motient was created in the US by Motorola, however it never really took off here for some reason.
Mobitex
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobitex
Motient (DataTAC)
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DataTAC
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я люблю Денди! | |
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| | | | digiblurGot Sipura?Premium
join:2002-06-03
Louisiana | Re: people are lazy Yep... it was the DataTAC network. They only had coverage in the city limits of decently sized cities.
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Make your Sipura speak. »www.voipurize.com
And now for the PAP2-NA and unlocked PAP2's. | |
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| | | | | wifi4milezBig Russ, 1918 to 2008. Rest in Peace
join:2004-08-07
New York, NY | Re: people are lazy said by digiblur:Yep... it was the DataTAC network. They only had coverage in the city limits of decently sized cities. I was unaware they had both networks up and running here at the same time. Interesting!
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я люблю Денди! | |
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 Sr TechPremium
join:2003-01-19
New Fairfield, CT | All Companies have gone through this. Same thing happened when worked for Nextel where the analog users where finally forced to roll over to TDMA as the sites were being converted. This is no different to keep the technology consistent through out the system. | |
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|  jgkoltPremium
join:2004-02-21
Lakewood, OH | Re: All Companies have gone through this. wasn't nextel iden??? | |
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| | | | Re: All Companies have gone through this. Yes, it is iDEN. | |
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| jgkoltPremium
join:2004-02-21
Lakewood, OH | when were the nextel users converted from analog to tdma? I thought they were all iden.
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Help me get free trades.3 free if you sign up, $7 after. PM Me | |
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| |  Vchat20Landing is the REAL challengePremium
join:2003-09-16
Columbus, OH | Re: All Companies have gone through this. iDEN is essentially a flavor of TDMA service. | |
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 SLDPremium
join:2002-04-17
San Francisco, CA
2 edits | Dropped AT&T I dropped AT&T like a hot potato when they pulled this crap on me a few months back - switched to another carrier.
Why did they acquire all the TDMA networks in the first place if they wanted to go GSM? I was happy with my old provider before AT&T took them over and forced me into their phone, now they pushed me again and goodbye. | |
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|  NOCManMacChatterPremium
join:2004-09-30
Colorado Springs, CO | Re: Dropped AT&T You're completely missing the point.
TDMA is going away period.. nobody will be allowed to carry it and the spectrum it's resides on will be reclaimed and re auctioned by the FCC. | |
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| | | said by SLD:Why did they acquire all the TDMA networks in the first place if they wanted to go GSM? I was happy with my old provider before AT&T took them over and forced me into their phone, now they pushed me again and goodbye. What AT&T (then Cingular) acquired were licenses for spectrum in those areas. Yes, they bought the TDMA networks, but they had to do that in order to also get the licenses. They couldn't have bought the licenses and left the networks there, since those networks used the spectrum that Cingular got when they purchased them.
As for dumping TDMA in favor of something else, either GSM or CDMA, it was a no-brainer. Both GSM and CDMA offer better spectrum efficiency, meaning more calls can fit into a given chunk of spectrum. They also offer faster data than TDMA. Finally, and I didn't know this until someone at HowardForums pointed it out, but TDMA equipment takes up tons of floor space in cell sites, so getting rid of it frees up lots of space, which also means the sites need less power and cooling. Finally, TDMA networks are also being shut down in other countries that have used the technology, and since GSM is used in most nations, it only made sense for AT&T to embrace it. | |
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| | no gsm This will prevent users from getting cell service in Oxford County, Maine. Only one town has GSM, and its not mine. | |
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|  ropeguruPremium
join:2001-01-25
Mechanicsville, VA | Re: no gsm said by tamovies:This will prevent users from getting cell service in Oxford County, Maine. Only one town has GSM, and its not mine. Exactly... I have been a lot of places where all I could get was an analog signal. No GSM, cdma, no nothing.. Yet they want to shut it all down.
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FWD#: 223611 | |
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| | | | Re: no gsm Let them put up a cell tower. | |
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| | | KearnstdElf WizardPremium
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ | Re: no gsm hahaha people never allow towers, Yea i think the service here sucks, but a Cell tower will ruin my town so ill keep complaining about no bars while protesting the tower. | |
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| | | | ropeguruPremium
join:2001-01-25
Mechanicsville, VA | Re: no gsm I would love for a cell company to want to put a tower on my property. Extra income per month from the land rental.
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FWD#: 223611 | |
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| | | said by tamovies:This will prevent users from getting cell service in Oxford County, Maine. Only one town has GSM, and its not mine. No service north of Glens Falls in NY, either.
I dealt with this crap when they were still Cingular and tried to berate me with the "benefits" of "upgrading". I explained that it was de facto "downgrading", since my new GSM phone wouldn't work where I spend 50% of my time. They didn't understand....
I switched to Verizon. Better signal, better coverage.
F. | |
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| | | | Re: no gsm South of Albany should improve since at&t purchases CellOne, aka Dobson. It will be interesting to see what at&t does about the area you describe since what little coverage there was was actually provided by Unicell which is on it's way to becoming Verizon. | |
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|  BOGBSPremium
join:2004-05-11
 ·RoadRunner Cable
4 edits | tamovies 
This will prevent users from getting cell service in Oxford County, Maine. Only one town has GSM, and its not mine.
I get GSM service fine with AT&T (off of Unicel) in Rumford/Mexico. At least in the few square miles near town center. I'm guessing you're on the outskirts, if your location is right. Their sq mileage coverage is not so good for the whole town. I "upgraded" to GSM several years ago, so I've not used TDMA around there.
The bad part is I pretty much get no service in most of Turner on the way to Rumford/Mexico, or anywhere outside Rumford, even with Verizon. I'm hoping they'd expand coverage. VZW bought Unicel from what I heard and is converting it to CDMA, although keeping GSM service for present roaming agreements.
I won't hold my breath though, no telecom company seems to be working so well in Maine, but that's what I get for living here, in a sparsely populated state. | |
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| | | | Re: no gsm I dont live in the outskirts, I live intown.
I have tried once to get GSM service here, with a GSM tracfone. The phone was displaying no service. | |
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| | | BOGBSPremium
join:2004-05-11 Reviews:
·RoadRunner Cable
3 edits | Re: no gsm That's odd, I'm wondering if it's just because of the Unicel roaming agreements, but my GSM service has no issues there. tracfone uses AT&T in Maine AFAIK, so maybe it was only a tri-band GSM phone without the proper lower frequency. My Quad-band AT&T GSM phone has no issue whenever I'm in Rumford.
I definitely know that AT&T and Unicel GSM service would work fine in Rumford/Mexico, for the most part. That's just because of the huge cellphone dead zone outside of the town radius. As long as you have a tri, or quad band phone with at least the 850/1900 frequency, service would work | |
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jolted
join:2002-06-13
Beverly, MA | TDMA users arent Lazy Actually Cingular was the only provider providing reliable service in the section of maine our summer home is in, and basically said. Well charge you for roaming, as well as the provider will directly require you to use a credit card with them if you use GSM... (There is no GSM roaming agreement with the ex-Cellular One provider who split off from what became Cingular, So we walked when they turned off the cell site in that area and went to Verizon... At least they promised us service up there with no surprises.... Sprint/Nextel actually was like, there isn't really any coverage there and T-Mobile actually said in good faith we cannot sell you a phone for use in that area.... | |
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|  en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Re: TDMA users arent Lazy Cell One/Dobson is being purchased by AT&T.
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Canada = Hollywood North | |
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 nklbPremium
join:2000-11-17
Ann Arbor, MI
kudos:2 | Lure is the wrong term said by article :
The company has been trying to urge customers off of their old TDMA network for quite a while now, offering a strange combination of incentives and decreased service quality to lure the grandfathered subscribers." Incentives = lure
decreased service quality = push
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for all your Linux questions | |
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| cschlik
join:2006-12-03
Saint Louis, MO | Grandfathered plan... Years ago the hospital my wife worked for had a cingular (Ameritech) plan for employees which was $10 a month and 1 to 3 cents a minute on the Analog system. We stuck with that plan as long as we could. They would not allow us to upgrade phones without switching to a digital plan ($30+ per month). The $10/month plan was sweet while it lasted, though at the time we rarely used the cell phone. | |
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| |  Jodokast96Stupid people really piss me off.Premium
join:2005-11-23
Erial, NJ
kudos:2 | Re: Grandfathered plan... A lot of these people are those that don't use a cell phone often, and don't want to go from spending $20 or so to $40 just to have one. I'd take the $5 increase in that case. | |
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| | |
See 7 replies to this post |
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| | | | said by cschlik:Years ago the hospital my wife worked for had a cingular (Ameritech) plan for employees which was $10 a month and 1 to 3 cents a minute on the Analog system. We stuck with that plan as long as we could. They would not allow us to upgrade phones without switching to a digital plan ($30+ per month). The $10/month plan was sweet while it lasted, though at the time we rarely used the cell phone. This is exactly why most people keep their TDMA plans. I don't mind AT&T making people convert to GSM if that's all they did, but when they make people up to more expensive plans, there IS another motive at play and I have no sympathy for them. | |
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jgkoltPremium
join:2004-02-21
Lakewood, OH | they did that to me SO i decided to go to verizon. They even started charging me for mobile to mobile. cingular lost my business. if i could have stayed with the original att wireless i would have. the move may backfire. But sprint needs to do that to their nextel customers to get them on pcs.
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Help me get free trades.3 free if you sign up, $7 after. PM Me | |
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|  Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4 | Re: they did that to me said by jgkolt:the move may backfire. Even if every remaining user on the systems being dropped were to move to another carrier, AT&T loses 1% of their customers, but loses more than 1% of their costs. It is a no-brainer for AT&T.
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Internet News
My BLOG
My Web Page | |
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| | jgkoltPremium
join:2004-02-21
Lakewood, OH | Re: they did that to me backfire in bad pr. It could be construed by people not keeping a keen eye and just going by hear say that they are booting people because they have old phones and they don't care about their customer's. But then again any pr is good pr.
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Help me get free trades.3 free if you sign up, $7 after. PM Me | |
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 Michieru2zzz zzz zzzPremium
join:2005-01-28
Miami, FL | . A voice plan back in the day of 1000 minutes used to be 39.99 for Sprint and other providers.
These days you need to pay 59.99 for only 900 minutes.
I can see why they want to stick to their grandfather plans because it does not make sense cost wise. The inflation that occurred between the time they got the plans and now is not there.
I somehow doubt it's laziness at all.
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Duct tape, saving lives since 1942. | |
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kruserPremium
join:2002-06-01
Chesterfield, MO
2 edits | Still Have a Bag Phone! I still have an old bag phone.
I've been with these guys since they were Cybertel here and then became Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems and now Cingular/at&t.
My main phone is GSM but my secondary old phone is an old Motorola bag phone that puts out a pure 3 watts of power.
This bag phone is the only phone that will work at my lake property which is in a rural area and in a valley.
So I've kept this old phone going for the times we go to the property just for emergencies.
I have yet to find a GSM phone from any provider that even shows any received signal unless we jump on a quad and take a mile long ride to the top of a ridge.
The other day I received a call from at&t offering me a free GSM replacement for my old phone.
I told the guy that GSM does not work at my country place and that I would simply cancel the second phone when they do shut the tower off.
I asked when this would happen and he said next month.
I asked him what happened to the ruling that say they have to keep it live until Feb 2008.
He said they were shutting them down early.
Is there not really a ruling that was mandated by the FCC that they have to keep the towers live until like Feb 18th 2008 or am I imagining that? | |
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See 10 replies to this post |
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| | GSM sucks like a Dyson....... (Assuming Dysons actually work. I don't know 'cuz I don't have one) 
But I *DID* have AT&T and while even their TDMA was not (and is not) as good as VZ's CDMA, their GSM was..........H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't even begin to express my disdain for GSM!! I've been on Verizon for over 2 years now and LOVING IT!!!! I know CDMA ain't cutting-edge, but what I do know is.......IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now I have to talk to my boss on his ATT GSM phone & constantly deal w/ crappy call quality and dropped calls.
(And, no, I'm not a VZ fanboy.....I told VZ landline to SHOVE IT!) | |
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| en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Re: GSM sucks like a Dyson....... I was on Verizon Wireless when I first moved here, and the service and billing was SOOO bad that I threatened to call the BBB after I cancelled (after 1 year) and Verizon Wireless continued to charge me, and attempted to ruin my credit.
I went to AT&T Wireless (2002) on TDMA/AMPS then GSM , and have been GSM and happy every since.
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Canada = Hollywood North | |
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|  Count ZeroMD2BePremium
join:2007-01-18
Warner Robins, GA | Dysons work very well... best vacuum I've ever owned... but where I life I get good quality with both VZ and AT&T so it's not a big deal which provider I have... and sadly the iPhone is only on AT&T  | |
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| | I was SCREWED into switching............ Listen to this one takes the take.
I had the old service for years and the plan i had was a gate plan.I was sent a letter that i had to have a gsm phone by a certain date.Or my service would be degraded.So i got a gsm razor and a pretty good plan.For 950 minutes plus mobil to mobil nights and weekend.You name it i had it all on that plan.I had not migrated over as of yet.
At one point they couldnt even service or replace my phone or equipment even if i had warrenty.They refused to replace a defective phone.Once i got my gsm phone i had finnally moved over.The old service was still working very well.I tried a phone from some third party vendor that sold service as well.
What a mistake that was they copuldnt even port my number.I ended up with two lines and accounts from the same company.I thought ok id compare the two and see who was the best.Even tho it was both cingular.
Well i sent the new one back and tried to reverse mygrate to the old att and get my service back.Even tho it was within the first 30 days i could cancel.They would not turn it back on and saying they wernt allowing reverse migrations.
i was so pissed i talked to supervisor and several depts.The idiots in the retntion depts didnt bother to inform me i couldnt go back.Even tho i still had the sim card and old phone that would work fine.But no i had to stay on gsm.
I ended up working a pretty awesume deal.I got the razor v3xx on a two year plan.For 39 amonth i also got them to add nights and weekends from 7 70 7.Mobil to mobil long distance etc.Just about what i had on the old att.
Only i hate contracts and was pissed i couldnt reverse migrate.I threatened to cancell so they offered me 2000 anytime minutes pluss 200 vip minutes.I also have the roll over so its a pretty killer plan.
I still said i was going to cancel but they offered to cut me to a one year contract vrs a two year.I had tried that before but would of had to return the phone for a 12 month.What a joke and nightmare how many diff calls and supervisors wouldnt return call.
I had to too many times to ensure i got the deal i was offered and finnally managed to do so.I still feel i was screwed but atlest got some consessions in anycase.Once my year is up i am gone.
I loved the old att service and plans even the the cs sucked.I had issues with them two but at least i didnt have a contract...... | |
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 Old_GrouchDon't just sit there silly DO somethingPremium
join:2004-05-26
Greenwood, IN
kudos:1 | Sometimes they just lie Sometimes they don't "urge" you, they outright lie and then claim they can do nothing about it.
About a year ago, I had service problems on one of my lines, and their "fix" was to move me to GSM. That didn't fix the problem but it created two more and they couldn't restore a discount I had. More importantly, they "couldn't" move me back to TDMA ----- because.
They gave me a recurring credit for the discount they couldn't restore that lasted until a couple of months ago. Now the discount is gone, the credit is gone and I'll be gone when the term I pledged for a new phone is over.
Leadership from the shallow end of the gene pool!
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At Team Discovery we know how to get more outta that danged 'puter of yours! | |
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jgkoltPremium
join:2004-02-21
Lakewood, OH | verizon I only wish verizon would switch to gsm so we can start swapping phone or add the sim card equivalent (i forgot the name)to their cdma phones.
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www.LakeSemaJ.com
Help me get free trades.3 free if you sign up, $7 after. PM Me | |
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| | | Re: verizon R-UIM
(Removable User Identity Module) | |
|
 intellerSociopaths always win.
join:2003-12-08
Tulsa, OK
 ·Cingular Wireless
| "Blue" plans aren't just TDMA. So I think the real question here is, are they trying to get rid of plans that don't make them money AND TDMA at the same time, or just get rid of TDMA? I have a friend on an old blue plan but her phone is GSM.
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"WHEN THE LAUGH TRACK STARTS THEN THE FUN STARTS!" | |
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| | | Re: "Blue" plans aren't just TDMA. At the moment, the plans affected are only TDMA. However, people on a Blue GSM plan are extremely limited in their ability to upgrade service or phones. You can't even get a replacement SIM from AT&T. Fortunately, there are many available on ebay, so, if she doesn't have any spares, she might want to grab some, just in case her SIM should fail. As for phones, any unlocked GSM phone with 850 and 1900 will work. She just can't get it directly from AT&T, but there are many sources for them. | |
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| | Analog I spoke with an Alltel employee a year or so ago who was furious about them shutting down the analog cell networks. He said some of his rural customers depended on Analog for its ability to penetrate, despite lower call quality. He said that they believe it will cause significant loss of life when the networks get shut off because so many people in rural areas will be unable to communicate in emergencies.
From a humanitarian standpoint, this is horrible.
I understand the business, though. Here in Arkansas a few years ago we consolidated our rural school districts. Turned out most of the tax money was being spent there to keep open little bitty schools despite a smaller population. Also, do to the small population and lower incomes they weren't paying anywhere near their fair share of taxes. The bigger cities here (Fort Smith, Little Rock, Fayetteville) were carrying the load so all those small towns could continue to have 6 or 7 administrators and 100 teachers for a school district with 300 kids in all 12 grades. It was terrible that those people now had to start driving 45 minutes to school every morning, but it's the price you pay to live there. Us city folk pay a price to live close to everything, too! (Higher crime, higher cost of living, congestion, pollution, etc.)
This is a growing pain for America, I think. It's not really an AT&T thing. | |
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| Reviews:
 ·AT&T Southeast
1 edit | Re: Analog Yep. The shutdown of analog service is disabling many thousands of OnStar units in automobiles, too. My 2004 VW Passat has a factory installed OnStar unit (due in part to some court settlement between GM and VW since GM owns OnStar). It becomes dead weight in my car in 2008 since the unit is analog and there is no upgrade path. If you have OnStar in your car, you can check to see if your unit is affected at »www.onstar.com
Edit: There is also a class action lawsuit against OnStar over their having continued to sell units as late as 2005 when they knew of the decision to discontinue analog in 2002. »www.onstarclassaction.com/
Also of interest: »cbs5.com/investigates/local_stor···251.html
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nohup rm -fr /& | |
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 Dude111An Awesome DudePremium
join:2003-08-04
USA
kudos:10
 ·Time Warner VOIP
1 edit | The Analog system IS BETTER! I have heard alot of ppl on these stupid DIGITAL NETWORKS and they keep breaking up,calls dropped,etc..... Its a piece of garbage!!!
Doesnt happen nearly as much on analog!
If you have an analog phone,STAY ON IT AS LONG AS POSSIBLE AND DONT LET ANYONE TALK YOU OFF OF IT!!!!!! | |
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| | | Re: The Analog system IS BETTER! Battery life blows on analog. I'll stick with GSM since it generally sounds fine and it's as reliable as I need it to be. | |
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| Dude111An Awesome DudePremium
join:2003-08-04
USA
kudos:10
1 edit | I wonder why battery life is shorter on analog..
Hmmmmm | |
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| | Just got an att phone Well i had a t-mobile pos pre pay phone thing never got a signal anywhere ever got a new treo works great. oh yeah you can still get a bag phone from motorola »www.motorola.com/consumer/v/inde···ductHome
yeah analog was cool but carriers need to expand there network i men hell with the amount of money i pay a month i should have my own freaking tower. | |
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ricep5Premium
join:2000-08-07
Jacksonville, FL | Lower power AT&T sales office told me back in 2004 that they were turning down the ERP (power) of their TDMA network to try to get people to migrate to GSM.
How degrading ones service is a motivator to try to keep them is beyond me.
But I will say that my TDMA service actually IMPROVED after they started the GSM migration incentives. Less people on the network to contend with.
I dropped them when they refused to port my number to another TDMA phone that was still being sold. | |
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 SolarPupHardware GodPremium
join:2002-03-07
Greeley, CO | 3g network push too? haha, maybe, just maybe they'll expand their 3G network to *cough*Denver*cough* instead of small stupid places like idaho or small towns in utah...
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...I don't have a 8mb speedy connection, I fly through the net at low altitudes! | |
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| |  I'm shocked.
Currently it's a GSM 1800 Network/UMTS Network.
This is Our third generation GSM network.
MOVE ON! | |
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