Cellular phone service in remote areas
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
recently this was replaced by digital radio, which has the advantage of
handling far more calls and service features per communication
bandwidth channel. However, digital radio does not transmit as well as
analog and is troublesome in rural areas.
When cell phones first came out they were installed in calls with
higher power transmitters. Portable phones were known as "bag phones"
which also had higher power. I understand such phones are necessary
when travelling through rural areas since there aren't cell phone
towers close by.
I understand analog service will be cut off next year and everyone will
have to use to digital. What will happen to remote users who need
higher power equipment now offered by the old bag phones?
Could anyone elaborate on cell phone service in isolated areas? (I
would presume service would be good along major highways even in rural
areas due to traffic volume. I was thinking more of true isolated
areas far from a main Interstate or highway.)
[public replies please]
Jesse Whidden
happened in northern and western Nebraska. By and large, areas west of
US 81 and north of I-80 are cell phone hell, with reliable digital
service only in the immediate vicinity of a cell tower. If your phone
doesn't work on a CDMA network, you're completely out of luck.
Therefore, the bag phones have stuck around to the present day; they're
popular with farmers/ranchers who keep them in their vehicles. In
addition, third-party external antennas are also a common phone
accessory.
I don't know what will happen to those people who are still using
analog-only phones when the networks go digital-only; however, I do
know that Alltel (the main or only wireless provider in rural Nebraska)
has a policy of benign neglect towards their analog equipment. Perhaps
they'll just not bother turning that equipment off, and just let it
operate until it becomes nonfunctional.
--
Jesse Whidden - Nebraska Roads
http://www.nebraskaroads.com/
Monte Castleman
are still analog only. I made it a point to get an analog capable phone
when I upgraded last month, the only model that Verizon offered that was
so capable.
--
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richard
<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote in message
news:1145909757.5...@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
Amplifiers!
Years ago when "bag phones" were the state of the art thing, of which I had
one version, many users found amplifiers helped out quite a bit.
Growing up in cincinnati ohio I found out that the cars with dual antennas
on the outside of the car also had 60 watt amplifiers.
What you need to do is find a mobile phone service company in your area and
ask them what they might have for your needs.
The big problem with cell phone coverage is, if you ain't around an
interstate, you ain't gonna get it. Check out the coverage maps and you'll
see they match the interstate system.
--
NewsGuy.Com 30Gb $9.95 Carry Forward and On Demand Bandwidth
Michael G. Koerner
Of course it is an economic non-starter for the farming/ranching crowd, but
the only option that I can see is the $1+/minute satellite services (Iridium,
etc) - but then again, didn't analog-cellular airtime run about a dollar per
minute in the early-mid 1980s?
OR - one could revert to a dual-frequency two-way VHF radio and have the wife
patch the call through on a landline telephone back at the house.
--
___________________________________________ ____ _______________
Regards, | |\ ____
| | | | |\
Michael G. Koerner May they | | | | | | rise again!
Appleton, Wisconsin USA | | | | | |
___________________________________________ | | | | | | _______________
US 71
Winslow isn't much better.
James Robinson
> OR - one could revert to a dual-frequency two-way VHF radio and have
> the wife patch the call through on a landline telephone back at the
> house.
How much of the old analog mobile phone systems still exist? (pre-cellular)
I remember that they had fairly good coverage in rural areas, since the
towers were not as expensive, and they had greater range. When cellular
came along, they stopped development of the older technology, but did they
shut the systems down, or keep them operating?
Stanley Cline
>I understand analog service will be cut off next year and everyone will
>have to use to digital. What will happen to remote users who need
>higher power equipment now offered by the old bag phones?
There are quite a few third-party solutions available to increase
digital reception.
GSM is more problematic than CDMA in rural areas because GSM uses
timing standards that *require* that a user be 35 km or less from a
cell site to receive service from that cell site. There is no such
hard limit in CDMA, but CDMA has its own issues related to "picking up
too many cell sites", which makes CDMA service somewhat unreliable on
mountaintops and on the sides of mountains.
IS-136 TDMA is dying along with AMPS and is largely irrelevant these
days, and iDEN, used only by the Nextel side of Sprint Nextel and a
few small regional business-oriented carriers, is on its way out too;
both have the same sort of timing issue as GSM, but not to the degree
GSM does.
>Could anyone elaborate on cell phone service in isolated areas? (I
>would presume service would be good along major highways even in rural
>areas due to traffic volume. I was thinking more of true isolated
>areas far from a main Interstate or highway.)
Interstates and major US highway corridors are almost never a problem.
Coverage in very isolated areas depends on the state and on the
cellular carriers licensed for those areas; West Virginia, Oregon, and
(as someone else noted) Nebraska, along with Alaska of course, seem to
be the states with the most and largest "no service at all" holes,
while other states such as Montana and Texas actually have a fairly
large amount of "truly the middle of nowhere" coverage of one form or
another.
-SC
--
Stanley Cline // Telco Boi // sc1 at roamer1 dot org // www.roamer1.org
"it seems like all you ever buy is Abercrombie and cell phones" --a friend
Ronnie Dobbs
> Jasper, AR is down in a "hole" and cell service is awful down there.
> Winslow isn't much better.
There are lots of 'holes' in rural Arkansas. My dad's house in northeast
Polk County is a dead spot, for example.
Bill
"James Robinson" <was...@212.com> wrote in message
news:Xns97AFE2C55D489wa...@216.196.97.142...
Not only is the analog network still operating, it still covers more area
than the digital network. My Nokia 252 analog phone gets reception in places
my friends only dream about. Even in the city, it gets much better reception
and drops calls less than any digital phone.The truth is that digital phones
benefit the phone companies, not consumers. As long as I can get service I'm
sticking with analog.
- B
Stanley Cline
wrote:
>How much of the old analog mobile phone systems still exist? (pre-cellular)
>I remember that they had fairly good coverage in rural areas, since the
>towers were not as expensive, and they had greater range. When cellular
>came along, they stopped development of the older technology, but did they
>shut the systems down, or keep them operating?
AFAIK, all of them (MTS/IMTS) were shut down in the late '80s/early
'90s.
James Robinson
>
> James Robinson <was...@212.com> wrote:
>
>> How much of the old analog mobile phone systems still exist?
>> (pre-cellular) I remember that they had fairly good coverage in rural
>> areas, since the towers were not as expensive, and they had greater
>> range. When cellular came along, they stopped development of the
>> older technology, but did they shut the systems down, or keep them
>> operating?
>
> AFAIK, all of them (MTS/IMTS) were shut down in the late '80s/early
> '90s.
In doing some searches, it appears that the old 0G networks are still
operating in nothern Canada, plus at least one US company still operates
one close to the Canadian border. Considering how widespread they once
were, it's interesting to see how quickly cellular sucked away their
customers.
Bill
"Bill" <you....@be.kidding> wrote in message
news:Gog3g.5611$Lm5....@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com...
Uh, please ignore my post. I mis-read your post and thought you were talking
about analog cellular. "Never mind!"
- B
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
James Robinson wrote:
> In doing some searches, it appears that the old 0G networks are still
> operating in nothern Canada, plus at least one US company still operates
> one close to the Canadian border. Considering how widespread they once
> were, it's interesting to see how quickly cellular sucked away their
> customers.
I'm not sure it was "sucked away" rather than transferred by the phone
co itself.
The pre-cellular systems were very low capacity. One big powerful
transmitter serving a wide area. There was a high unmet demand.
The FCC sat on cellular service tariffs for years.
The genius of "cellular" (orig known as AMPS) was to break the radio
into low power cells that could be repeated in an area. This way the
same radio frequency could be used multiple times in the same region,
making it more efficient. The old magazine Bell Labortories Record
described the development in detail. (I believe it was Bell that
invented cellular telephone service; it was Motorola that came up with
a hand held phone). Accordingly, once cellular was available, I would
presume the phone companies simply transferred existing mobile
customers to cellular service.
That phenomena is repeating itself today. Digital allows more capacity
than analog so they are converting over to it. Initially, digital had
many problems since it is more "finicky" about the signal. They've had
to add a lot more towers in more places to get around buildings and
other impediments.
I was on a train in New Jersey in a developed area, when all other
psgrs' phones cut out. My old analog phone was still working. I don't
know where we were that killed off digital signals, but something did.
Monte Castleman
>dies and Cingular comes up with a plan as good as the one
>grandfathered over from AT&T two acquisitions ago. These days, it
>seems like Cingular wants to sell overpriced buckets of minutes
>that I have no chance of ever using up over my lifetime.
>
Seems to be a common theme. For a long time I had a plan from Verizon- 75
minutes plus tax for about $25.00 a month. They've been sending me an
endless barage of junk mail claiming my life could be in jeopardy because I
had a phone that wasn't E911 cabable, and I could get one for free if I
would upgrade my contract to one of their current plans at double the cost.
Eventually I caved in, not because of their marketing but because my old
phone broke and my sister wanted in on a family plan. The national network
is nice, but traveling a lot is more something I dream of than something I
do in reality.
George Conklin
"Monte Castleman" <qmdcas...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:YLI3g.6865$BS2...@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> >Oh? I use it daily, and will continue to use it until the phone
> >dies and Cingular comes up with a plan as good as the one
> >grandfathered over from AT&T two acquisitions ago. These days, it
> >seems like Cingular wants to sell overpriced buckets of minutes
> >that I have no chance of ever using up over my lifetime.
> >
> Seems to be a common theme. For a long time I had a plan from Verizon- 75
> minutes plus tax for about $25.00 a month. They've been sending me an
> endless barage of junk mail claiming my life could be in jeopardy because
I
> had a phone that wasn't E911 cabable, and I could get one for free if I
> would upgrade my contract to one of their current plans at double the
cost.
>
> Eventually I caved in, not because of their marketing but because my old
> phone broke and my sister wanted in on a family plan. The national network
> is nice, but traveling a lot is more something I dream of than something I
> do in reality.
But the lack of service in rural areas is still a serious problem for
anyone who has a house in a non-urban area or travels most anywhere. Cell
phones are good only in major cities or along well-traveled interstates. I
have a cabin in NC that has NO cell phone service at all, analog or digital.
With a spy glass you can see a cell tower about 10 miles away on a mountain
peak, but that is too far for service. Cell providers have no plans to fill
in the gaps either...I asked.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
US 71 wrote:
> Jasper, AR is down in a "hole" and cell service is awful down there.
> Winslow isn't much better.
What will I do if I want to call my friends after a girl in big red
Ford slows down take a look at me?
Brian Elfert
>The big problem with cell phone coverage is, if you ain't around an
>interstate, you ain't gonna get it. Check out the coverage maps and you'll
>see they match the interstate system.
I get cell service far from any interstates or major highways.
Rural areas that used to be analog are slowly switching to digital.
Digital requires far less signal strength to actually make a call.
Analog might not work at all with one bar of signal strength and will be
unusable due to static if the call goes through.
Brian Elfert
George Conklin
"Brian Elfert" <bel...@visi.com> wrote in message
news:124vscc...@corp.supernews.com...
With one bar, digital cuts out too.
Richard Kaszeta
> "richard" <spa...@nospam.not> writes:
>
>
> >The big problem with cell phone coverage is, if you ain't around an
> >interstate, you ain't gonna get it. Check out the coverage maps and you'll
> >see they match the interstate system.
>
> I get cell service far from any interstates or major highways.
And I live half a mile from I-89 and get no service. It's just not
a good indicator of service, except as a *very* rough rule of thumb.
--
Richard W Kaszeta
ri...@kaszeta.org
http://www.kaszeta.org/rich
John Mara
>
> And I live half a mile from I-89 and get no service. It's just not
> a good indicator of service, except as a *very* rough rule of thumb.
There are constant complaints about the lack of cell phone service along
I87 (The Northway) between Lake George and Plattsburg in New York.
There was a system of call boxes along the road but the system died on
1/1/2000. (AFAIK, the only Y2K failure prediction that came true)
There are no services at many of the exits along this stretch.
On the other hand it wasn't that long ago that if you broke down on the
interstate you sat there until a State Trooper came along.
John Mara