Say Goodbye to Analog Cell Phones This Month

By David DeWitte, The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Feb. 14–If you’re one of those slow adopters who likes to keep your old cellular phone around, it’s finally time to ditch it for a newer model.

Analog cell phones will no longer work after midnight Feb. 18, according to the Cedar Rapids police and fire departments.

That means you can’t count on them any more to make 911 calls.

Cellular companies, which long ago transitioned most of their customers to digital handsets, are allowed by the Federal Communications to deactivate their networks on that date, according to Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Karen Smith.

Deactivating the analog networks is preferable to most cellular providers, because so few customers use them, and they involve considerable cost to operate and maintain.

Smith said Verizon, after repeatedly encouraging customers to come in for new digital handsets, mailed out free digi tal handsets to the last remaining holdouts last month with instructions to go to a Verizon store to have them activated.

“We’ve been proactively calling all of them for a year,” Smith said. “It’s less than one half of one percent that still have the old analog phones.” If a customer is unsure whether their old phone is analog, Smith said the lack of advanced functions available in digital handsets is the best tip-off that it really is an oldster.

Analog handsets don’t have text messaging, integrated cameras or other goodies such as integrated MP3 players.

Cellular phone users who are unsure if their phone is analog should take it to their service provider’s nearest store for a determination.

A handful of cellular providers have said they’ll keep providing analog service past the FCC sunset date, but most plan to discontinue analog service this year.

Contact the writer: (319) 398-8317 or david.dewitte@ gazettecommunications.com

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Copyright (c) 2008, The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

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