In article <slrnesk9cf.8p.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com>,
dcferguson@pacbell.net says...
> 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
>
That's assuming there are towers with nothing but AMPS. If there is any
digital on the tower at all then all those costs must exist anyway. Are
there any such towers--most likely both digital and analog are there but
the analog is either further up the tower or is cranked up powerwise or
both to support a few callers at greater range than digital reaches. To
reach the same area as analog with digital would take more towers.

> 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.
>
Could be. Whatcha want to bet if nothing has been done when the AMPS
sunset is reached, they'll turn off AMPS--BUT LEAVE THE EQUIPMENT IN
PLACE--waiting for enough public to scream and the politicans to jump on
the FCC and congress to subsidize the carriers maintainance of AMPS in
those areas. The trouble with that is if there are no AMPS phones being
made then eventually the problem is going to have to be addressed with
expanding the digital signal to where it should be in the first place.
--
Jud
Dallas TX USA