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U.S.
cellular carriers are aggressively promoting a new generation of phones
that have everything from built-in cameras to Web surfing. But there's
another, less-welcome wrinkle to the latest phones: Many are missing their
old analog gear, and that can make it harder to place and receive calls in
many areas.
As wireless
carriers make the transition from analog to digital networks, many
consumers are discovering that their fancier digital phones simply can't
complete a call in a lot of places where their old phones worked just fine.
Problems with blocked calls and dead zones are afflicting callers in big
cities, including New York and Los Angeles, but they
are especially pronounced in rural areas.
It's an unforeseen
drawback of the telecommunication industry's big investment in so-called
next-generation equipment. As a group, U.S. cellular providers have
spent more than $146 billion to upgrade their networks from analog to
more-efficient digital technology, according to the Cellular
Telecommunications and Internet Association.
Analog cellphone service relies on a continuously variable
radio signal to transmit a call, similar to the way vinyl LP records
produce music. Digital calls are transmitted via a series of electrical
pulses, which is similar to the technology in music CDs and far more
efficient than analog.
Digital cellular
technology clearly is an improvement over analog. Digital networks can
handle significantly more calls -- up to 10 times as many, depending on the
type of technology, some executives estimate -- which allow more users to
dial at the same time and conserves precious radio-wave spectrum. Digital
technology also allows the phone manufacturers to make their handsets
slimmer, conserve battery life and offer an array of revenue-generating,
high-tech services like wireless Internet browsing. Many callers say
coverage has improved with all-digital phones.
At the same time,
many of the big carriers, like Verizon Wireless, Cingular Wireless and AT&T Wireless Services Inc.,
still rely on older analog networks for "roaming" arrangements in
small towns not covered by the digital infrastructure -- and for backup
capacity in big cities where the digital networks can get overloaded.
The catch is that
a lot of today's best-selling phones aren't built to work on the analog
networks. In an effort to get phones and the latest technology to market
more quickly, a number of carriers have pared back their selection of
phones with the component that allows users to pick up an analog signal.
All five of the
top-selling phones from Cingular and AT&T
Wireless -- including Motorola's popular V400 clamshell phone with a
built-in camera -- lack an analog component. (Cingular
is expected to complete its acquisition of AT&T Wireless later this
year, which probably will make it the country's biggest cellular carrier.)
One of Verizon Wireless's best-selling phones,
the color-screen VX6000 camera phone by LG Electronics Inc., has no analog
component.
While the digital
networks cover a large portion of the country, there are still enormous
gaps. Wide swaths of the rural U.S., including much of Montana, Nevada,
Nebraska, Colorado, Missouri, Kentucky, Vermont and New Hampshire, are
still analog only, according to the Federal Communications Commission. That
means myriad dead spots for users of many of the newer phones.
The problems with
the analog-to-digital transition are expected to recede as digital coverage
continues to spread, but they could still last several years. Other areas
of the world have made the transition to digital much more quickly. In Western Europe, tighter geographic concentration and
quicker construction of digital networks has meant that users are less
likely to spend hours driving through sparsely populated areas that have
only analog coverage.
Other parts of the
world have also run into trouble. Three years ago, Japanese cellular users
experienced similar frustrations when leading operator NTT DoCoMo Inc. rolled out slick new "3G" phones
before the new network covered as much ground as its older network.
In the U.S.,
AT&T Wireless and Cingular have a big
incentive for not selling phones with analog service: The two carriers are
each already operating two different digital network technologies, called
TDMA and GSM. Encouraging customers to use a third, vastly less-efficient
analog technology puts the squeeze on the operators' scarce radio-wave
spectrum. None of their GSM phones have analog, except for a few
hard-to-find models that combine TDMA and GSM.
AT&T Wireless spokesman
Mark Siegel says the demand for analog is "light, and as such, we only
need to allocate minimal spectrum in each market to handle the
traffic."
Plus, calling over
analog networks often means the carrier is paying expensive, per-minute
roaming fees to a smaller operator of an analog network. Eliminating the
analog function eliminates those expenses.
"They want
more and more for their customers to be completely on their network,"
said Charles Golvin, a principal analyst at Forrester
Research Inc., a technology research and consulting firm based in Cambridge, Mass.
New York City
resident Raymond Green, a 23-year-old associate with the Winged Keel Group,
which sells disability and life insurance, has noticed the problem and switched
phones three times in the past year. All of the models had Internet access
and color screens, cost at least $150 and left him unhappy. Mr. Green says
the phones he owned a couple of years ago had fewer "dropped calls and
better reception."
Not all cellular
operators are willing to ditch the analog in their phones. Alltel Corp.,
the country's seventh-biggest wireless operator, with 8.3 million
customers, says it includes analog backup in every phone it sells.
"The cost
benefit of offering a digital-only phone for us hasn't outweighed the
impact it could have on our ability to provide the customer with adequate
coverage outside of our networks," said Kevin Beebe, Alltel's group
president of operations. The carrier still operates small parts of its network
solely over analog.
Another big
problem with the phasing out of analog service: a higher likelihood of not
being able to make an emergency phone call. In a survey of its subscribers,
Consumer Reports found that about 15% of the 1,880 who tried to call 911
using their cellphone had trouble getting
through. The phasing out of analog is a problem because the major U.S.
cellular carriers use four incompatible digital technologies. A caller
using, say, a Cingular GSM-only phone in an area
where the only digital signal available is a CDMA signal from Verizon Wireless would not be able to complete the
call. But the caller could if the phone had an analog component.
The FCC requires
that carriers continue to operate analog networks until Feb. 18, 2008 --
but it doesn't require phone manufacturers to include the analog component
in every handset.
"Even at the
time the rules were made, the [FCC] noted the growth of digital phones was
going to be a problem," said David Heim, an editor for Consumer
Reports. "The importance of analog is it's a common language for
calls."
Industry officials
track figures on attempted calls that don't go through but decline to
release them. The cellphone companies say they
aren't aware of more complaints related to network quality. "The
quality of calls has done nothing but improve," says Mr. Siegel, the
AT&T Wireless spokesman.
But the lack of
analog can leave consumers in the lurch. While working last year in
Mountaineer, a small city in West
Virginia, Steve Michaels, a musical director,
learned just how important having an analog component in his phone can be.
He was in the process of switching to Verizon
Wireless from Sprint and had both providers' cellphones
with him. But only the Verizon Wireless phone,
which had analog capabilities, worked.
Robert Walker, a
software writer who lives in Bellevue, Wash., last year had to call 911
during a hiking expedition to report another hiker's injury. He says his Verizon Wireless phone was only able to find a signal
from an AT&T Wireless tower because they shared analog capabilities.
"I certainly hope that ... when carriers are no longer required to
maintain analog that they continue to do so," he says. "You get
outside of the major metropolitan areas here and you're pretty much toast
if you don't have analog."
It can be tough to
figure out whether a phone is rigged for analog by looking at carrier Web
sites. Verizon Wireless's site, for example,
lists its phones that include analog backup as "tri-mode" -- but
the word "analog" can be hard to find. Verizon
Wireless, however, does have detailed maps revealing what parts of its
network are covered solely by analog.
Cellphone
bulletin boards on the Internet, such as howardchui.com and phonescoop.com
offer information about capabilities of different phones, including what
parts of the country have no digital coverage.
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