On 2007-02-06, Don Udel (ETC) <donudel@ellijay.com> wrote:
> If there are areas that would go uncovered witthout AMPS and a carrier could
> make money with it, why would it go away? I would suspect that AMPS could
> well go away in areas already well covered by digital services. In rural
> areas, where it is the only infrastructure in place, why turn it off and be
> left with no footprint? That just does not make sense.

Note that to make money from this service they need to have more than
a little bit of use. Just having those towers costs money. There's a
power bill to pay, they need to pay for tower rental or taxes on the land
it is constructed on, and they need to spend a bit on maintaining
both the physical infrastructure (so the tower doesn't fall on someone
or cause a fire) and the electronics for both the cell and the backhaul
network connecting it to the PSTN. The cost of repairing or replacing
old electronics continually increases, so at some point they'd need to
pay for new investment to keep the cost of continuing maintenance
reasonable. Also, the coverage in rural areas with only AMPS is seldom
"complete" any more because the tower spacing is designed for significantly
higher power handsets than are now available for purchase.

So they need to make some investment to keep this stuff viable and to
keep ongoing maintenance costs reasonable, and to pay for all of this
they need to have people using, and paying for, the service they provide.
The carriers who own these towers know how much it costs to maintain the
service, and how much use they are getting to pay for it, and from that
they can figure out whether there is money to be made from keeping the
service or whether it is just going to be an ongoing loss. And, to
tell the truth, if there were serious money to be made from these
services they already would have added digital service to the tower.
There's no shortage of spectrum in rural areas, digital service would
improve (though probably not entirely fix) the coverage situation with
low power handsets, and modern electronics would help with maintenance
costs. The fact that they've not made this investment in some places
should suggest that the business prospects may not be that rosy.

Or, at least, this is the argument the carriers might make. I have some
suspicions arising from the unanimity of the big carriers (including
Verizon and Alltel, whose customers can still use AMPS service) that
they are keen to turn this stuff off just as soon as it is permitted.
While I believe that AMPS is a goner regardless, my suspicion is that
they're playing chicken with the FCC over rural coverage because they'd
like to coax yet another handout from the government (to add to your
bill), like the landline carriers get, to keep coverage turned on in
places with small populations or where the terrain is rugged. We'll
see how that goes.

Dennis Ferguson