Moab Cell Phone Service

Congratulations, you are smarter than 98% of the AT&T CSRs. You qualify for Network Managment.

Analog seems more tolerant of poor signal strength. While digital turns your voice into trash, you can often hear a person through analog static.

I had Sprint once upon a time. Some of the best audio i've ever heard on a cellphone. When I could get a signal that is. Which was next to never...

Notice I said cellphone too. It's not wireless, it's cellular. The switch came some time back when the marketing guys wanted to get everyone used to the idea of 'wireless services' that would be offered in the future. Anyway I think the new term is 'mobile' now, referring to the phone itself. That one's not too bad...I can live with it.

Shawn

I'm pretty sure that AT&T won't even activate a new analog account anymore. I'm sure that Verizon will, and probably Alltel as well in my area. Other older/smaller operators may also do it.

Those bag phones were nice. 3 watts of power instead of .6 in the handheld phones. I still have a few sitting around collecting dust.

Analog's big problem is efficiency...it takes too much bandwidth to place one call. Cell companies want the most use of the spectrum they have to fit the most users on a given channel. With the huge growth in popularity of cellphones the last few years, it's out of necessity more than anything.

Shawn

Thanks for checking around. I'll look into Sprint and Verizon. I've got an old analog/digital phone that I used with Sprint years ago. I wonder if that would work well down there? Given the rural nature of the area it will probably be the last to be upgraded to the fancy GSM equipment.

It makes sense to me that an analog phone would work better in areas of poor reception. Static that would kill a digital connection is still relatively easy to hear through.

Dean

I think I still have the TDMA phones. (Nokia 8260 and 5165)

And, I think you are a little generous with the percentage of CSRs of any company that have any clue what-so-ever. IMHO it is down around .0001% mostly they seem to be board college kids that would rather be anyplace else besides that little booth in the mall.

DEan,

I dropped AT&T like a bad habit a few years ago, their service in the Four Corners is abysmal, but frankly it sucked most everywhere else, too. Out here they piggyback on AllTel, which is another loser, and they simply can't fix the problem you're having. I switched to Verison and have been super happy with them. Digital coverage virtually all over this area, incl. Moab. (BTW, I'm in Durango, CO.)