Are Verizon Analog Cell Phone Towers Done in 2006?
Are the analog cell phone towers going to decommissioned this year and converted to digital? Thus rendering the tri-mode portion of a Verizon phone just a duel-digital phone?
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The FCC has mandated that any carrier who has an analog tower, to keep them on for the few that would be able to use them. Even though no carrier has offered analog only plans for a few years now, the analog towers were kept on to allow coverage in areas that have yet to be converted to digital. I heard Cingular wanted to turn off their analog towers at the end of this year, but they have to keep them on, even if none of their phones have analog on them. But as part of the rule, any analog towers that do quit working before the mandated 01/01/2009 deadline (I believe that date is correct), they don't have to be fixed. Verizon would like to eliminate the analog towers too, but they have areas that have yet to be converted to digital, and ...
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Cingular no longer owns or operates any analog towers, and last time I checked, Verizon doesn't either. Both companies converted all of their analog towers to digital. That's why they have huge digital footprints, and no analog towers left to shut off.
The smaller companies are on the other side of the fence.
The smaller companies are on the other side of the fence.
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Verizon has a few analog towers in Wyoming and Arizona. From what I understand, they've pretty much stopped upkeep on them, but they're still around.
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Verizon still has a few analog towers in Indiana. Once in a while, my phone will go into analog when in the boonies on their network. They have yet to get rid of all their analog towers, but it still exists in my neck of the woods.
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As I understand it, Verizon's towers are for the most part already all-digital, but many of the smaller companies with which Verizon has roaming agreements continue to have primarily analog coverage. I'm not sure when these smaller companies will be required to convert to digital. Does anyone know?
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