Analog Cell Phone phase out.

Apparently, in addition to the government plan to phase out analog TV, they also plan to phase out analog Cell phones.

I suppose that would make sense only if they are taking the spectrum away from the companies. Unlike TV where they are taking a portion of the band away.

Could be that analog is based on older technology of receive/transmit offsets...so a much bigger chunk of spectrum is used and it is two chunks. Though the digital providers that used to do analog, tend to have their digital spectrum adjacent to the analog bands (not sure if there is some overlap, guess it depends on the technology or how the provider did its initial implementation).

I guess I'm kind of split on the elimination of analog cell phones. When I first switched to digital, the biggest problem was lack of coverage...especially when traveling. There were too many times I'd travel to a distant city, to find no digital service. And having a digital only phone, meant that I had no service.

To this, the industry responded with dual mode phones....so they could fall back to analog. Sometimes it required a different provider, especially if it happened a lot and it cost extra to do it (analog roaming fees). So, it was a requirement for me to have analog capability in my phone. And later, one where it wouldn't cost me an arm and leg whenever the phone went analog....

Though now I travel a lot less than I did back then, and digital coverage has improved (though I tend not leave the major areas). To the point, last year, where I made the leap to a digital only phone again....so far so good. Yes, there have been times where I've been without service....but that is more of a reliability problem with the providers network than coverage. Though, that isn't really a good thing....