Old cell phone networks losing signal

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/5398510.html

Old cell phone networks losing signal
By PETER SVENSSON

NEW YORK — 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.

It's the end of the nationwide network that launched the U.S. wireless
industry 24 years ago, and it leaves a surprising number of users like
Adele Rothman in the lurch.

OnStar told Rothman in March its service would stop at the end of this
year, in anticipation of the network shutdown in February. "I was
really upset," she said, "because that was my tieline" to her son.

Some fixes are easy

Perhaps a million cell phones will lose service, but those are cheap
and easy to replace.

The effects will be felt the most by people who have things that aren't
phones but have built-in wireless capabilities, like OnStar cars and
home alarm systems.

The shutdown date has been known years in advance, but some industries
appear to have had a problem updating their technologies and informing
their customers in advance.

General Motors Corp., which owns OnStar, started modifying its cars
after the 2002 decision by the Federal Communications Commission to let
the network die, but some cars made as late as 2005 can't use digital
networks for OnStar, nor can they be upgraded.

For some cars made in the intervening years, GM provides digital
upgrades for $15.

In 2006, OnStar said it had let customers know of the shutdown with a
posting on its Web site.

This year, it said it had notified all affected customers. Spokeswoman
Cristi Chojnacki said she was unable to comment beyond those
statements. General Motors and other car manufacturers with similar
systems, including Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz, are facing a potential
class-action lawsuit over the analog shutdown.

When Rothman complained, GM sent a $500 coupon toward the purchase of a
new car. To compensate for the lack of OnStar, she outfitted her son's
car with a handsfree system and a Global Positioning System.

A week before the end-of-year shutdown, the analog coverage map is
still the first one presented on OnStar's Web site. The digital
coverage map, showing large areas of "limited" service in
out-of-the-way places, is available on another page.

On the home alarm side, about 400,000 systems still use analog service,
according to Lou Fiore, chairman of the Alarm Industry Communications
Committee. In most of those systems, the wireless link to the alarm
center is a backup to the landline. But some homes lack a landline, so
the wireless link is the only connection to the outside world.

Fiore doesn't know the current number of systems that only use analog
wireless connections and no landline, but a survey by the AICC a few
years ago put the number at 138,000.

"The larger (alarm) companies are in pretty good shape," Fiore said.
"There are so many smaller companies out there that are probably, I'd
say, in denial. They just don't know about it."

To complicate things, some alarm systems advertised as "digital"
actually use a digital subchannel of the analog network. True digital
alarm system modems did not become available until 2006, according to
the AICC.

According to the FCC, many analog alarms that have not been replaced by
the time the network is shut down will start beeping to warn that
they've lost the connection to the alarm center.

The Central Station Alarm Association, an alarm industry group and the
parent of the AICC, tried to get the FCC to delay the analog sunset.

The FCC turned away that request this year, saying digital networks are
a much better use of the airwaves. The same spectrum can carry about 16
times more traffic using digital technology compared to analog.

Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. and Alltel Corp. are the largest carriers
that still have analog networks. Alltel will take more time than
Verizon and AT&T to close its network, shutting down in three stages
ending in September. Each carrier will keep its portion of the newly
available spectrum, and will use it to boost their digital services.

A few rural cellular providers may keep their networks up. Plateau
Wireless, which provides service in eastern New Mexico and western
Texas, will maintain its analog network alongside a digital one "for
the foreseeable future," said Chief Executive Tom Phelps.

Around for two decades

Commercial service on the analog network, also known as the Advanced
Mobile Phone Service, or AMPS, began in 1983; it was the first time
coverage areas were divided into smaller areas known as cells, a move
that boosted call capacity tremendously.

Rapid development in the wireless field now means a faster, better
technology always lurks just around the corner, tempting carriers to
upgrade. Digital networks will almost certainly have shorter life spans
than the 24-year run for AMPS, causing problems for manufacturers who
want to include wireless technology in things that have long life
spans.

"If you've got a product that's going into the market for five years,
for 10 years, for 15 years, how do you pick a technology that's going
to be around that long?" asked Chris Purpura, senior vice president of
marketing at Aeris Communications.

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