No, It almost certainly will not work with Cingular, which is a 1.9ghz digital network. You will need to find a carrier that has a 800mhz AMPS network in place, such as the old Cellular One (now AT&T?), or Verizon.
The carriers may be reluctant to activate new service on a analog phone, as they can fit multiple digital calls in the same bandwith as a single analog call.
There are also security issues, as a analog phone can be easily cloned using information sniffed off the air, with no physical access to the donor phone required. This is/was a major problem in many urban markets, where folks would park on a overpass over the freeway, and sniff ESN's from all the cellular users passing by, and then clone the ESN's into other phones, and sell calling time to the immigrant community. No fun when your bill shows up with thousands of dollars in calls to central america, although the cell companies would generally absorb the charges, it was a big hassle all around.
The FCC has set a sunset date, after which time the carriers are free to discontinue analog service. That date is February 18th, 2008. After that date, there is no guarantee that analog service will continue to be available, although I suspect that it will continue in more rural areas for some time.
-- Welcome My Son, Welcome To The Machine -- Bob Vaughan | techie @ tantivy.net | | P.O. Box 19792, Stanford, Ca 94309 |
-- I am Me, I am only Me, And no one else is Me, What could be simpler? --
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, the old AT&T Wireless Network was bought by Cingular, not by Cell One, however, it seemed to be the policy of AT&T that anytime _they_ were not able to service a customer the customer was handed off to the nearest Cell One tower. Some of that may just be playing games with words and names however, since here in Independence, AT&T (now Cingular) services its customers via the Cell One 'antenna farm' owned and operated by Dobson Cell Towers, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dobson Cell One. Located in nearby Liberty, Kansas, Dobson Cell Towers rents space to whomever, such as Cingular Wireless, Cell One, Alltel and US Cellular.Cingular has already stated (see my response to the other message in this group today) they will continue to service analog phones until 'sometime next year' as required by the FCC regulations. However, the area code I am in (620, southeast Kansas) will _only_ as of now, or as of last month, actually, be digital service. Until a few years ago, we used to be in area 316 (same as Wichita) and any _prepaid_ phones I wish to turn on (until next year's deadline) will be handled out of Wichita 316, like my present prepaid cellular phone, making me a 'roamer' for service. But 'roamer' is just a word also, all rates for prepaid service here in Independence, local or roaming, are 25 cents per minute under prepaid service. The effect of this where I am concerned is _all calls_ local or 'long distance' when using the Cingular prepaid service must commence with me entering my number and my pin. Not so on my 'regular' cell phone service. They will _not_ cell any analog phones or service as such any longer; just keep up with what is still out there. I may switch to Cell One or Alltel in the future if I can get a better deal from them _AND_ port my existing number. PAT]