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US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 11:28 pm
by Jim2121

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2007 10:52 am
by motorola_otaku
I'm gonna miss my old Dyna-TAC brick phone. :(

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2007 2:29 pm
by batdude
last time i was out at a fairly "populated" cell site... all the analog stuff was down to a single channel up and running in each of the stacks... most of the parts had been scavenged and just empty racks remain....


guess that's the end.



;-)

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2007 4:23 pm
by ab
Darn, I'll have to reprogram my scanner now 8)

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2007 5:15 pm
by HLA
the only ones i've seen lately is the bag phones the ambulance guys still use for their ekg transmit to the hospitals.

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2007 7:13 pm
by escomm
can't wait, AT&T really screwed their customers in California since Cingular had to divest their JV with T-Mobile, and apparently once AMPS goes bye-bye then AT&T is going to roll out WCDMA over 850. or so they say....

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2007 9:04 pm
by Dan562
Hmmmm, I wonder what the U.S. Prison system is going to do with all of their Analog Leg Braclets for watching the people out on House Assignment only?

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2007 11:00 pm
by wazzzzzzzzup
back in the day (early 90s) i had a analog cell phone. you couldnt beat the "unlimited weekend calling" for 15$ a month!
with base service costing 35.00 with NO free minutes and minutes costing .40 in the day and .25 at night during the week. long distance was extra too. they shoved it to ya without a condom and no lube!!
want to heat up that analog transmitter? call your home phone for an entire saturday and rack up 1000 minutes a day on the weekend. with the "free weekend" option.
or when i was completely bored i would go to a gas station or supermarket parking lot, find the number of a payphone within view of the car, and call it when people walk by, HE HE the fun! all with an analog phone. who doesnt know someone today thats over the age of 15 that DOESNT have a call phone. back in the early 90's i was the only one i knew with an active cell phone. times change. that phone didnt have multiple ring tones,no text messaging,no caller id (would only flash "CALL") when it rang. i think it had 10 memories. whats it going to be like 15 years from now?

does anyone remember "post call validation"? if you had a cell phone with no active service, and you took it on a road trip, if you happened to travel into a service area that didnt check if you had service before the call, you would get 1 or 2 free calls (including long distance)b4 the system would catch on to you. nobody i called that way ever told me a phone company tried to bill them collect for the call.



wazz

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 11:17 am
by MTS2000des
I miss my old "cellular connection" box for the Motorola Micro Tac. It was a battery powered box that plugged into the universal connector and provided a dial tone and let you plug in any standard phone device in. It even generated rings and all. Best thing was driving around with an old Western Electric 2500 touch tone desk set in my car, making people laugh at the dude "wanting everyone to think he had a 'car phone'". The girl at the local Wendy's was laughing her ass off when I came through her drive through. She said "man that aint no car phone". I asked for the number to the place. I called it. It rang. She was speechless. Better than Mastercard, priceless...

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 8:06 pm
by motorola_otaku
MTS2000des wrote:I miss my old "cellular connection" box for the Motorola Micro Tac. It was a battery powered box that plugged into the universal connector and provided a dial tone and let you plug in any standard phone device in. It even generated rings and all. Best thing was driving around with an old Western Electric 2500 touch tone desk set in my car, making people laugh at the dude "wanting everyone to think he had a 'car phone'". The girl at the local Wendy's was laughing her ass off when I came through her drive through. She said "man that aint no car phone". I asked for the number to the place. I called it. It rang. She was speechless. Better than Mastercard, priceless...
Such a device still exists.. sort of. It ain't cheap, though. See here.

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2007 4:22 am
by Jim2121
motorola_otaku wrote:
MTS2000des wrote:I miss my old "cellular connection" box for the Motorola Micro Tac. It was a battery powered box that plugged into the universal connector and provided a dial tone and let you plug in any standard phone device in. It even generated rings and all. Best thing was driving around with an old Western Electric 2500 touch tone desk set in my car, making people laugh at the dude "wanting everyone to think he had a 'car phone'". The girl at the local Wendy's was laughing her ass off when I came through her drive through. She said "man that aint no car phone". I asked for the number to the place. I called it. It rang. She was speechless. Better than Mastercard, priceless...
Such a device still exists.. sort of. It ain't cheap, though. See here.
http://www.outfittersatellite.com/rentals.htm this isn't cheap either... but I might want to go this way... maybe not the website, but I know someone at M who can give me a deal!!!

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2007 2:03 pm
by Josh
They actually make a device that takes any regular cell phone and allows you to plug a wireline telephone into it.

I use one with one of my phone patches with success, and it's been in service for a year.

-Josh

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2007 4:04 pm
by spareparts
I use a pair of Multitech CF100-FX2-G gateways connected via FXO ports on our PBX. The routing tables send any cellphone calls out via them to reduce the charges (Cell to Cell is airtime and connect chagres free on our plan). Just over $420.00 each

PS - both are GETS/WPS provisioned as a alternative route to the PSTN

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2007 8:26 pm
by twowaytekk
Intersting stuff. I'm looking at installing an alarm system at a remote building with no landline service, but has excellent gsm cell service. I wonder how well this would work to hook up to the alarm system to dial the monitoring service. Anyone have thoughts on this?

Mark

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 3:52 pm
by PRR
twowaytekk wrote:Intersting stuff. I'm looking at installing an alarm system at a remote building with no landline service, but has excellent gsm cell service. I wonder how well this would work to hook up to the alarm system to dial the monitoring service. Anyone have thoughts on this?
https://www.telular.com/telguard/products.asp

Henry

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 4:52 pm
by Pj
I actually took an analog cell 911 call a couple of weeks ago. The caller and the tower picking up the call were many miles and hills in between. Sounded pretty damn good too until he went into the valley...

Ho hum..

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 7:58 am
by Battman
The alarm system I use has an optional GSM gateway module available and uses alarm.com to activate and log in to the system from the internet.

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 5:44 pm
by RESCUE161
I still have my old bag-phone that I got back in 1995. Still have several bills in the pocket of the "bag". Too funny to see how much it cost back then. They charged for airtime, roaming and long distance... I got 30 minutes of airtime per month and it cost me $39.95 plus taxes and fees...lol

The bills I had in the pocket were around $200.00.

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:18 pm
by mancow
Ha, that's some funny **** right there.

BTW, I just noticed that the analog control channels are missing here. That sure was a fun chunk of spectrum back in the day.
MTS2000des wrote:I miss my old "cellular connection" box for the Motorola Micro Tac. It was a battery powered box that plugged into the universal connector and provided a dial tone and let you plug in any standard phone device in. It even generated rings and all. Best thing was driving around with an old Western Electric 2500 touch tone desk set in my car, making people laugh at the dude "wanting everyone to think he had a 'car phone'". The girl at the local Wendy's was laughing her ass off when I came through her drive through. She said "man that aint no car phone". I asked for the number to the place. I called it. It rang. She was speechless. Better than Mastercard, priceless...

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 9:56 pm
by wazzzzzzzzup
mancow wrote:Ha, that's some funny **** right there.

BTW, I just noticed that the analog control channels are missing here. That sure was a fun chunk of spectrum back in the day. quote]

if people want to scan for cell data channels they are between 879.000 and 881.000
each data channel could support 15 voice channels. the most i ever found on 1 tower was 3 data channels and 45 voice.

Re: US analog cell-phone service to end in February

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 9:16 pm
by techie
RESCUE161 wrote:I still have my old bag-phone that I got back in 1995. Still have several bills in the pocket of the "bag". Too funny to see how much it cost back then. They charged for airtime, roaming and long distance... I got 30 minutes of airtime per month and it cost me $39.95 plus taxes and fees...lol

The bills I had in the pocket were around $200.00.

Bag phones still exist..

http://www.motorola.com/consumer/v/inde ... roductHome
http://www.motorola.com/consumer/v/inde ... roductHome