Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Roaming With No Analog-and No Service

BillRadio is out roaming the west again, and he tried to call from one of those remote areas where not even the antelope play very often. Bill was the advocate of keeping your analog phone until the last analog signal faded away, and in this case, it has.

Forced to digital-only phones, and digital-only cell sites, most of that stretch of I-70 from Green River to Salina, Utah now has absolutely no cellular coverage. There used to be analog if you really tried. I can see Bill standing on the roof of his car just to make sure…”Can you hear me now?” Nope. Its 70 miles of interstate and no cell service.

A few years ago the state of Utah asked several carriers to consider the area for cellular coverage, and the reply was a very polite, “No.” Of course you and I know it’s possible. Solar power, multiple-hop microwave and bear-proof fences can make it happen, but can it make money? Apparently not. And Utah didn’t offer to pay…at least not yet. The best thing you can take with you there is advice: “don’t go there if you break down.” But it'll be a nice way to meet your fellow travelers.

7 comments:

William said...

Does Alaska still have analog roaming? I remember reading not too long ago that some of their cellular companies are (maybe were) used only analog networks.

Benjamin A said...

William it seems as you and I end up posting on the same topics quite a bit LOL.

Since my sister moved to WI 3 years ago I find my self at least once a year on that stretch of interstate. In 07 and 08 thanks to an ESN swap back to a Nokia 6165 I was able to pull the Alltel analog and had a 5 minute call with a friend. This year thanks to the analog in this area being shut off last October I joined the rest of the no service masses. This situation is also now true on some of Amtraks routes. We saw this coming and as I said last year it will be something tragic to occur before they resolve the problem. On a strange note while visiting my sister this last time we discovered that Centennial still has an active analog network in MI. I guess once AT&T gets the green light to take over we all know what is going first.

William said...

Well Benjamin, what can I say--great minds think alike lol. This is the only cellular website I even post on anymore; the fanboys ruin the experience elsewhere.

I'm surprised to hear Centennial still has an analog network in Michigan. Most (maybe not all) of the analog networks here were shut down in early 2008. The Centennial network in Louisiana is all digital, and i'll admit it's pretty darn good. Their terms of service agreement and customer service are a different story though.

Benjamin A said...

I have heard that about them quite a few times in my travels. Arent you in one of the areas that they were told to divest and were looking at selling to Verizon in order to be bought by AT&T. I guess we can hope that if thats the case that they at least keep their GSM network up like they have in the former Alltel and Unicel areas.

William said...

Yeah I live in Central Louisiana, which is one of the areas where their network will be divested. From what I understand, At&t will get Centennial's subscribers in these areas, but Verizon will get control over the Centennial network and its regional spectrum. The people currently using Centennial will either automatically be ported to At&t, or they will be given the choice to switch to Verizon and keep their current terms and conditions leftover from Centennial. Even as expensive as Verizon is, they would be saving money by switching to one of Verizon's plans. Nonetheless, not many people here are too thrilled about this. The majority of Centennial's subscribers don't want to be sent to another phone company, and At&t users are in a flux because their regional monopoly is about to come to an end.

Anonymous said...

Union Wireless (GSM) has coverage along he entire mentioned route. Their coverage maps are at http://tinyurl.com/ykoe69e .

Benjamin A said...

To anonymous I wish I could say that was true but unfortunately it wasn't the case. This year I had my Verizon personal phone as well as a work phone issued by T-Mobile. Both phones found tiny spots of former Alltel service and the rest of the time my Verizon phone just displayed Searching and my T-Mobile phone when attempting a network search displayed a no networks found message. The maps tend to show coverage because this area is licensed for GSM and CDMA from Alltel but no network is actually in place through this stretch. We're all still playing the waiting game.