THe winner with the fewest dropped calls is.....

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 11:23:08 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <45edbfa2$0$27253$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>Todd Allcock wrote:

>> I sill take issue with the concept of "costly AMPS coverage." Taking low-
>> usage rural towers in consideration for the moment, how is leaving
>> working AMPS equipment in place to rot more "costly" than replacing it
>> with additional unneeded digital capacity?
>
>For rural carriers, the loss of AMPS coverage will be costly because of
>roaming revenue.

Just the opposite -- the opportunity for digital roaming revenue is
orders of magnitude greater than AMPS.

>In several industries, including trucking, AMPS is
>still widely used.

It's actually being phased out rapidly, and isn't a major factor.

>[SMIP Cingular flame/troll]

Grow up, and quit trolling here. Since you're such a big fan of
Verizon, kindly stick to the Verizon group.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 10:46:19 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <45edb701$0$27174$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>When I go around the Santa Cruz mountains and East Bay hills I can often
>get AMPS but no CDMA or GSM. Sometimes this is away from the road, but
>often it's on the backroads in remote areas.

Nonsense, as Verizon coverage maps make clear.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

Todd Allcock wrote:
> At 06 Mar 2007 08:21:33 -0800 SMS wrote:
>>> Good point...never even thought of that!
>> It would all cancel out when comparing carriers, unless harassing exes
>> prefer one carrier over another.
>>
>
> Boy, wouldn't that be an interesting target market for an MVNO! ;-)

I was going to make a comment on how certain carriers might affect the
divorce rate, but maybe an MVNO targeting divorced couples that don't
get along would be more interesting.

At 06 Mar 2007 19:28:04 +0000 John Navas wrote:

> The carrier simply can't afford to do that due to negative backlash from
> users. If the AMPS network is to be left up, then it has to be fully
> maintained, a process that becomes more costly as it ages, components
> become more difficult and expensive to get, and trained personnel become
> less available.

Only if the carrier commits to allowing AMPS-only customers. I suspect
the vast majority of even very rural customers have been converted to
digital or digital/analog nits long ago. A roamer who is delighted to
find he has service in East Undershirt, IA isn't doing to notice or
complain that service wasn't available in West Cupcake, 30 miles back
down the road, even if both towers were part of the same network.


> As AMPS revenues go down, and the opportunity for digital revenues goes
> up, the case for shutting down and migrating the AMPS spectrum becomes
> ever more compelling. Spectrum is an expensive and finite resource.

In San Fran, yes. On a tower along I-70 in rural Kansas that processes
80 calls at peak times, spectrum isn't an isue- maximizing how many
different types of technology can use their service, is.

Look at Alltel- they're a CDMA carrier that left GSM capacity on their
rural midwestern networks just to service roamers. If spectrum was that
tight, they'd change everything to CDMA to better service their own
customers. Fortunately for me (who has roamed on Alltel quite a bit, in
both GSM with T-Mo, and Beyond Wireless in AMPS) they have capacity to
spare for CDMA, GSM, AMPS, and probably even a channel or two dedicated
to relaying smoke signals... ;-)

> >Sure, removing any traces of AMPS in urban/suburban areas MIGHT make
> >sense for increasing capacity (but even then, not much- most
> >urban/suburban installations are down to one or two channels of AMPS
> >anyway- digital can get what, 3 or 4 calls per channel instead of one?
>
> Eight with GSM. Roughly the same with CDMA. The difference is almost
> an order of magnitude. Huge.

Huge, IF a tower is running 100% analog. Switching the last two channels
of AMPS to digital is a net gain of 14 calls using your numbers.


> I disagree -- both carriers and major users (e.g. AlarmNet, OnStar) have
> already announced plans to rapidly phase out AMPS.

Officially, for their customers use, perhaps. My point is that the
actual AMPS capacity itself will likely remain operational (for use by
roamers or 911 calls) until techs are dispatched to those towers for some
other more compelling (and economical) reason, like a repair. Outside of
urban/suburban sprawl, towers are just not running anywhere close to full
capacity, so there is no urgent, (or cost-effective) need to convert a
handful of analog channels to digital to shoehorn in a little more
calling capacity.

I'm not even suggesting that there is a need for AMPS coverage beyond the
sunset date- I'm just suggesting that the inertia and economy of wireless
companies will see to it that change happens slowly.

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 13:28:17 -0700, Todd Allcock
<elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in <eskjd2$hq5$1@aioe.org>:

>At 06 Mar 2007 19:28:04 +0000 John Navas wrote:
>
>> The carrier simply can't afford to do that due to negative backlash from
>> users. If the AMPS network is to be left up, then it has to be fully
>> maintained, a process that becomes more costly as it ages, components
>> become more difficult and expensive to get, and trained personnel become
>> less available.
>
>Only if the carrier commits to allowing AMPS-only customers. I suspect
>the vast majority of even very rural customers have been converted to
>digital or digital/analog nits long ago. A roamer who is delighted to
>find he has service in East Undershirt, IA isn't doing to notice or
>complain that service wasn't available in West Cupcake, 30 miles back
>down the road, even if both towers were part of the same network.

With all due respect, it simply doesn't work that way -- carriers know
that neglect leads to problems that come back to bite them, if not from
consumers, then from other carriers. Letting a network go down the
drain simply isn't a viable option -- it's either maintained properly,
or it's shut down.

>> As AMPS revenues go down, and the opportunity for digital revenues goes
>> up, the case for shutting down and migrating the AMPS spectrum becomes
>> ever more compelling. Spectrum is an expensive and finite resource.
>
>In San Fran, yes. On a tower along I-70 in rural Kansas that processes
>80 calls at peak times, spectrum isn't an isue- maximizing how many
>different types of technology can use their service, is.

Again, it simply doesn't work that way -- maintaining a network is
expensive, and the cost of AMPS doesn't even come close to being
justified from a business perspective.

>Look at Alltel- they're a CDMA carrier that left GSM capacity on their
>rural midwestern networks just to service roamers. If spectrum was that
>tight, they'd change everything to CDMA to better service their own
>customers.

On the contrary -- roaming revenue tends to be much more profitably than
own subscriber revenue, and GSM is a major factor in the USA, whereas
AMPS is now minuscule.

>> >Sure, removing any traces of AMPS in urban/suburban areas MIGHT make
>> >sense for increasing capacity (but even then, not much- most
>> >urban/suburban installations are down to one or two channels of AMPS
>> >anyway- digital can get what, 3 or 4 calls per channel instead of one?
>>
>> Eight with GSM. Roughly the same with CDMA. The difference is almost
>> an order of magnitude. Huge.
>
>Huge, IF a tower is running 100% analog. Switching the last two channels
>of AMPS to digital is a net gain of 14 calls using your numbers.

Again, it's a matter of cost and revenue.

>> I disagree -- both carriers and major users (e.g. AlarmNet, OnStar) have
>> already announced plans to rapidly phase out AMPS.
>
>Officially, for their customers use, perhaps.

In practice as well.

>My point is that the
>actual AMPS capacity itself will likely remain operational (for use by
>roamers or 911 calls) until techs are dispatched to those towers for some
>other more compelling (and economical) reason, like a repair.

Again, I disagree.

>Outside of
>urban/suburban sprawl, towers are just not running anywhere close to full
>capacity, so there is no urgent, (or cost-effective) need to convert a
>handful of analog channels to digital to shoehorn in a little more
>calling capacity.

It's actually more cost-effective to shut down AMPS even without
conversion.

>I'm not even suggesting that there is a need for AMPS coverage beyond the
>sunset date- I'm just suggesting that the inertia and economy of wireless
>companies will see to it that change happens slowly.

Again, I disagree.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On 2007-03-06, John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 11:16:13 -0700, Todd Allcock
><elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in <eskbgq$uj0$1@aioe.org>:
>>Sure, removing any traces of AMPS in urban/suburban areas MIGHT make
>>sense for increasing capacity (but even then, not much- most
>>urban/suburban installations are down to one or two channels of AMPS
>>anyway- digital can get what, 3 or 4 calls per channel instead of one?
>
> Eight with GSM. Roughly the same with CDMA. The difference is almost
> an order of magnitude. Huge.

As I understand it that's not right. AMPS channels are 30 kHz wide,
1 conversation per channel. A GSM channel accomodates 8 TDM'd
users, but GSM channels are 200 kHz wide. CDMA channels are
1.25 MHz wide, but are reputed to accomodate well over 100 simultaneous
users (though I've never seen actual numbers published so this is a bit
fuzzy).

As I remember it the very reason they bothered to invent TDMA (and Japanese
PDC, for that matter) rather than just using the pre-existing GSM standard
is that GSM, at 25 kHz per voice user, is just barely more spectrum efficient
than AMPS. TDMA got 3 users in a 30 kHz channel (PDC got 3 in 25 kHz). The
reason they abandoned TDMA is that they decided higher speed data might be
important and they couldn't figure out a good way to do this in 30 kHz
channels without a lot of new invention; GSM existed already and the
200 kHz channels permitted a fairly straight forward data implementation,
so they switched rather than continue fighting. CDMA's big wide channels
made data easy, though this traded off against the number of users who
could share a channel quite sharply.

So the difference in users/kHz between AMPS and GSM is small. For
CDMA the original Qualcomm paper did claim a theoretical 7x AMPS
bandwidth utilization, but I've seen criticisms suggesting that paper
was significantly over-optimistic because of reliance on assumptions
that worked in the military radio environment Qualcomm had previously
designed for but which were more dubious for cellular service (and they
don't seem to publish real, measured numbers anywhere).

The advantage of digital services (GSM in particular) is hence not
increased capacity; there's no alternative to more towers for that.
The advantages are the increased set of services you can offer over
a digital network, and the fact that you can get the same distance
at lower handset transmitter power, enabling more attractive handsets.
Qualcomm claims than CDMA has an 11 db power advantage over FM (and I don't
think GSM is inferior), which not coincidentally is the difference between
a 2 or 3 Watt bag phone and the 200 mW handsets we use now.

Dennis Ferguson

At 06 Mar 2007 12:10:42 -0800 SMS wrote:

> I was going to make a comment on how certain carriers might affect
> the divorce rate, but maybe an MVNO targeting divorced couples that
> don't get along would be more interesting.
>

Sure- picture a family plan that offers unlimited calls to your kids, and
forwards your ex's calls to your attorney automatically! ;-)

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:44:26 -0600, Dennis Ferguson
<dcferguson@pacbell.net> wrote in
<slrneurkla.86.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com>:

>On 2007-03-06, John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 11:16:13 -0700, Todd Allcock
>><elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in <eskbgq$uj0$1@aioe.org>:
>>>Sure, removing any traces of AMPS in urban/suburban areas MIGHT make
>>>sense for increasing capacity (but even then, not much- most
>>>urban/suburban installations are down to one or two channels of AMPS
>>>anyway- digital can get what, 3 or 4 calls per channel instead of one?
>>
>> Eight with GSM. Roughly the same with CDMA. The difference is almost
>> an order of magnitude. Huge.
>
>As I understand it that's not right. AMPS channels are 30 kHz wide,
>1 conversation per channel. A GSM channel accomodates 8 TDM'd
>users, but GSM channels are 200 kHz wide. CDMA channels are
>1.25 MHz wide, but are reputed to accomodate well over 100 simultaneous
>users (though I've never seen actual numbers published so this is a bit
>fuzzy).
>
>As I remember it the very reason they bothered to invent TDMA (and Japanese
>PDC, for that matter) rather than just using the pre-existing GSM standard
>is that GSM, at 25 kHz per voice user, is just barely more spectrum efficient
>than AMPS. TDMA got 3 users in a 30 kHz channel (PDC got 3 in 25 kHz). The
>reason they abandoned TDMA is that they decided higher speed data might be
>important and they couldn't figure out a good way to do this in 30 kHz
>channels without a lot of new invention; GSM existed already and the
>200 kHz channels permitted a fairly straight forward data implementation,
>so they switched rather than continue fighting. CDMA's big wide channels
>made data easy, though this traded off against the number of users who
>could share a channel quite sharply.
>
>So the difference in users/kHz between AMPS and GSM is small. For
>CDMA the original Qualcomm paper did claim a theoretical 7x AMPS
>bandwidth utilization, but I've seen criticisms suggesting that paper
>was significantly over-optimistic because of reliance on assumptions
>that worked in the military radio environment Qualcomm had previously
>designed for but which were more dubious for cellular service (and they
>don't seem to publish real, measured numbers anywhere).
>
>The advantage of digital services (GSM in particular) is hence not
>increased capacity; there's no alternative to more towers for that.
>The advantages are the increased set of services you can offer over
>a digital network, and the fact that you can get the same distance
>at lower handset transmitter power, enabling more attractive handsets.
>Qualcomm claims than CDMA has an 11 db power advantage over FM (and I don't
>think GSM is inferior), which not coincidentally is the difference between
>a 2 or 3 Watt bag phone and the 200 mW handsets we use now.

<http://www.3gamericas.org/English/technology_center/QA/gsmqa.cfm>:

GSM allows multiple users to share a single radio channel through a
technique called time division multiplexing (TDM), where a channel is
divided into six time slots. Each caller is assigned a specific time
slot for transmission, which allows multiple callers to share a
single channel simultaneously without interfering with one another.
This design makes efficient use of spectrum and provides seven times
more capacity than analog or "AMPS", which is a first-generation (1G)
technology. ...

Even D-AMPS is (IS-136) is three times more spectrally-efficient than
AMPS -- see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-AMPS>.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

Todd Allcock wrote:
> AMPS equipment will be like the 5-1/4" floppy drives sitting in stacks of
> older computers in businesses nationwide. No one uses them, they
> aren't hurting anyone, and we're certainly not going to pay anyone to
> remove them unless they're already servicing the equipment for a more
> important reason anyway... ;-)

In telephone company lingo, its called R.I.P. - Retire In Place.

On 2007-03-06, John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:44:26 -0600, Dennis Ferguson
><dcferguson@pacbell.net> wrote in
><slrneurkla.86.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com>:
>
>>On 2007-03-06, John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>>> Eight with GSM. Roughly the same with CDMA. The difference is almost
>>> an order of magnitude. Huge.
>>
>>As I understand it that's not right. AMPS channels are 30 kHz wide,
>>1 conversation per channel. A GSM channel accomodates 8 TDM'd
>>users, but GSM channels are 200 kHz wide. CDMA channels are
>>1.25 MHz wide, but are reputed to accomodate well over 100 simultaneous
>>users (though I've never seen actual numbers published so this is a bit
>>fuzzy).
>>
>>As I remember it the very reason they bothered to invent TDMA (and Japanese
>>PDC, for that matter) rather than just using the pre-existing GSM standard
>>is that GSM, at 25 kHz per voice user, is just barely more spectrum efficient
>>than AMPS. TDMA got 3 users in a 30 kHz channel (PDC got 3 in 25 kHz). The
<...>
><http://www.3gamericas.org/English/technology_center/QA/gsmqa.cfm>:
>
> GSM allows multiple users to share a single radio channel through a
> technique called time division multiplexing (TDM), where a channel is
> divided into six time slots. Each caller is assigned a specific time
> slot for transmission, which allows multiple callers to share a
> single channel simultaneously without interfering with one another.
> This design makes efficient use of spectrum and provides seven times
> more capacity than analog or "AMPS", which is a first-generation (1G)
> technology. ...
>
> Even D-AMPS is (IS-136) is three times more spectrally-efficient than
> AMPS -- see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-AMPS>.

First, you are quoting something which incorrectly contradicts you,
as well as me, in sentence two, so I'm not sure why you have so
much faith in the unsupported assertion in sentence three. It says 6 time
slots per channel, but we both agree GSM has 8 timeslots per channel. The
unmentioned thing is, again, GSM channels are 200 kHz wide, so the
bandwidth per user is 25 kHz compared to 30 kHz for AMPS. See the tables
here:

<http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/wireless_comm_specs.htm>

How do they get a 7x more capacity from those numbers? That sounds
suspiciously like they are quoting the Qualcomm theoretical CDMA number,
which has nothing to do with GSM and which most people agree is dubious
anyway.

And yes, as I said, D-AMPS gets 3 users per 30 kHz channel, or 10 kHz per
user, which makes it 3 times more efficient than AMPS and 2.5 times more
efficient than GSM for voice service. As I said, that's why they invented
TDMA instead of just using GSM in the first place. And, as I said, the
reasons they changed back to GSM had nothing to do with its spectral
efficiency providing voice service, they were concerned about other stuff
that TDMA didn't do.

Note that in the table I linked to they have a rather lower opinion
of the spectral efficiency of CDMA than the number I quoted; at 50 users
per 1.25 MHz they think it is the same as GSM, which is not much better
than AMPS. I don't know if this is correct (no one seems to publish
measured numbers), but in any case the numbers make it fairly clear that
for the digital services we use now, spectral efficiency of voice service
compared to AMPS is clearly not a high priority; it is other issues which
are important. Please read what I wrote.

Dennis Ferguson

DTC wrote:
> Todd Allcock wrote:
>> AMPS equipment will be like the 5-1/4" floppy drives sitting in stacks of
>> older computers in businesses nationwide. No one uses them, they
>> aren't hurting anyone, and we're certainly not going to pay anyone to
>> remove them unless they're already servicing the equipment for a more
>> important reason anyway... ;-)
>
> In telephone company lingo, its called R.I.P. - Retire In Place.

The 5¼" drives are only a problem when someone that has never seen one
before thinks that it's a slot-loading CD-ROM drive.

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 16:35:44 -0600, Dennis Ferguson
<dcferguson@pacbell.net> wrote in
<slrneurr60.86.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com>:

>On 2007-03-06, John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:44:26 -0600, Dennis Ferguson
>><dcferguson@pacbell.net> wrote in
>><slrneurkla.86.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com>:
>>
>>>On 2007-03-06, John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>>>> Eight with GSM. Roughly the same with CDMA. The difference is almost
>>>> an order of magnitude. Huge.
>>>
>>>As I understand it that's not right. AMPS channels are 30 kHz wide,
>>>1 conversation per channel. A GSM channel accomodates 8 TDM'd
>>>users, but GSM channels are 200 kHz wide. CDMA channels are
>>>1.25 MHz wide, but are reputed to accomodate well over 100 simultaneous
>>>users (though I've never seen actual numbers published so this is a bit
>>>fuzzy).
>>>
>>>As I remember it the very reason they bothered to invent TDMA (and Japanese
>>>PDC, for that matter) rather than just using the pre-existing GSM standard
>>>is that GSM, at 25 kHz per voice user, is just barely more spectrum efficient
>>>than AMPS. TDMA got 3 users in a 30 kHz channel (PDC got 3 in 25 kHz). The
><...>
>><http://www.3gamericas.org/English/technology_center/QA/gsmqa.cfm>:
>>
>> GSM allows multiple users to share a single radio channel through a
>> technique called time division multiplexing (TDM), where a channel is
>> divided into six time slots. Each caller is assigned a specific time
>> slot for transmission, which allows multiple callers to share a
>> single channel simultaneously without interfering with one another.
>> This design makes efficient use of spectrum and provides seven times
>> more capacity than analog or "AMPS", which is a first-generation (1G)
>> technology. ...
>>
>> Even D-AMPS is (IS-136) is three times more spectrally-efficient than
>> AMPS -- see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-AMPS>.
>
>First, you are quoting something which incorrectly contradicts you,
>as well as me, in sentence two, so I'm not sure why you have so
>much faith in the unsupported assertion in sentence three. It says 6 time
>slots per channel, but we both agree GSM has 8 timeslots per channel. The
>unmentioned thing is, again, GSM channels are 200 kHz wide, so the
>bandwidth per user is 25 kHz compared to 30 kHz for AMPS. See the tables
>here:
>
> <http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/wireless_comm_specs.htm>
>
>How do they get a 7x more capacity from those numbers? That sounds
>suspiciously like they are quoting the Qualcomm theoretical CDMA number,
>which has nothing to do with GSM and which most people agree is dubious
>anyway.
>
>And yes, as I said, D-AMPS gets 3 users per 30 kHz channel, or 10 kHz per
>user, which makes it 3 times more efficient than AMPS and 2.5 times more
>efficient than GSM for voice service. As I said, that's why they invented
>TDMA instead of just using GSM in the first place. And, as I said, the
>reasons they changed back to GSM had nothing to do with its spectral
>efficiency providing voice service, they were concerned about other stuff
>that TDMA didn't do.
>
>Note that in the table I linked to they have a rather lower opinion
>of the spectral efficiency of CDMA than the number I quoted; at 50 users
>per 1.25 MHz they think it is the same as GSM, which is not much better
>than AMPS. I don't know if this is correct (no one seems to publish
>measured numbers), but in any case the numbers make it fairly clear that
>for the digital services we use now, spectral efficiency of voice service
>compared to AMPS is clearly not a high priority; it is other issues which
>are important. Please read what I wrote.

Still not correct. Call handling efficiency is commonly measured in
Erlangs. ( You knew that, right?

<http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/archive/r0608/22r08/22r08.asp&guid=>

And GSM is much more efficient than TDMA, says Dave Williams, vice
president of Strategic Planning for Cingular. Where TDMA can carry
about 30 erlangs (a unit of telephone traffic) per cell sector,
modern versions of GSM carry 162, Williams says.

"Traffic Analysis of Partially Overlaid AMPS/ANSI-136 Systems"
ISBN 978-0-7923-7902-7

AMPS is in the range of 9.2-11 Erlangs.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 22:12:57 GMT, DTC <no_spam@move_along_folks.foob>
wrote in <JHlHh.124573$_73.104713@newsread2.news.pas.earthl ink.net>:

>Todd Allcock wrote:
>> AMPS equipment will be like the 5-1/4" floppy drives sitting in stacks of
>> older computers in businesses nationwide. No one uses them, they
>> aren't hurting anyone, and we're certainly not going to pay anyone to
>> remove them unless they're already servicing the equipment for a more
>> important reason anyway... ;-)
>
>In telephone company lingo, its called R.I.P. - Retire In Place.

What telephone company (by name)? I don't know of any that do that,
except perhaps for tiny locals.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On 2007-03-06, John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 16:35:44 -0600, Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>>On 2007-03-06, John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>>First, you are quoting something which incorrectly contradicts you,
>>as well as me, in sentence two, so I'm not sure why you have so
>>much faith in the unsupported assertion in sentence three. It says 6 time
>>slots per channel, but we both agree GSM has 8 timeslots per channel. The
>>unmentioned thing is, again, GSM channels are 200 kHz wide, so the
>>bandwidth per user is 25 kHz compared to 30 kHz for AMPS. See the tables
>>here:
>>
>> <http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/wireless_comm_specs.htm>
>>
>>How do they get a 7x more capacity from those numbers? That sounds

I notice you didn't answer this question...

>>And yes, as I said, D-AMPS gets 3 users per 30 kHz channel, or 10 kHz per
>>user, which makes it 3 times more efficient than AMPS and 2.5 times more
>>efficient than GSM for voice service. As I said, that's why they invented
>>TDMA instead of just using GSM in the first place. And, as I said, the
>>reasons they changed back to GSM had nothing to do with its spectral
>>efficiency providing voice service, they were concerned about other stuff
>>that TDMA didn't do.
>>
>>Note that in the table I linked to they have a rather lower opinion
>>of the spectral efficiency of CDMA than the number I quoted; at 50 users
>>per 1.25 MHz they think it is the same as GSM, which is not much better
>>than AMPS. I don't know if this is correct (no one seems to publish
>>measured numbers), but in any case the numbers make it fairly clear that
>>for the digital services we use now, spectral efficiency of voice service
>>compared to AMPS is clearly not a high priority; it is other issues which
>>are important. Please read what I wrote.
>
> Still not correct. Call handling efficiency is commonly measured in
> Erlangs. ( You knew that, right?

I knew that, they taught it where I went to school. It's not a measurement
of call handling "efficiency" (the article didn't say this either), however,
but rather just a measure of call volume or call capacity.

><http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/archive/r0608/22r08/22r08.asp&guid=>
>
> And GSM is much more efficient than TDMA, says Dave Williams, vice
> president of Strategic Planning for Cingular. Where TDMA can carry
> about 30 erlangs (a unit of telephone traffic) per cell sector,
> modern versions of GSM carry 162, Williams says.
>
> "Traffic Analysis of Partially Overlaid AMPS/ANSI-136 Systems"
> ISBN 978-0-7923-7902-7
>
> AMPS is in the range of 9.2-11 Erlangs.

John, I get the feeling you are grasping a bit. The number "162" refers
to the number of call channels the GSM base station supports times the
peak-load average probability that a call channel will be busy handling a call
given the (unspecified) call blocking performance they're trying to achieve.
What the last sentence says is that, at the time that (undated, probably
older) article was written you could buy GSM base stations big enough to
handle 162 simultaneous calls per sector, while the TDMA base stations you
could buy would only support 30 simultaneous calls per sector, i.e. you
could buy really good GSM equipment but the TDMA stuff is crappy. It is
discussing equipment performance rather than some fundamental property
of the sharing scheme and modulation, and it says nothing at all about
the thing we were discussing, which is how much bandwidth each of those
calls occupies, i.e. spectral efficiency.

I'll say it again. GSM gets up to 8 calls in a 200 kHz channel, or
25 kHz per call. TDMA gets (got) up to 3 calls in a 30 kHz channel, or
10 kHz per call. The spectral efficiency of TDMA is hence 2.5 times
greater than GSM, and 3 times greater than AMPS. If you want to dispute
those numbers you've really got to explain why, not come up with quotes on
other topics and pretend they have something to do with it.

If they'd continued development on TDMA gear I'm sure that by now they'd
have equipment that could carry 500 Erlangs per sector. It doesn't matter,
they didn't do that and that isn't the topic anyway.

Dennis Ferguson

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 19:22:49 -0600, Dennis Ferguson
<dcferguson@pacbell.net> wrote in
<slrneus4v8.86.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com>:

>[SNIP]

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote in
news:606ru2pcq0rfdve8ft83pi3nj7u82oe3o1@4ax.com:
\
> AMPS almost certainly will go off very rapidly after sunset --
> carriers are eager to phase out the costly AMPS coverage and redeploy
> the spectrum into profitable digital coverage, as evidenced by both
> their actions and their words.
>

Anything to back that up, like a quote or press release? Of course not-
you're making it up.

Scott wrote:

> Anything to back that up, like a quote or press release? Of course not-
> you're making it up.

Standard Navas procedure.

In any case, urban AMPS will likely be shut down as Dennis stated, with
RIP (retire in place) since no carrier is going to waste resources
rolling a truck out to every tower to disable a service that at worst is
not being used, and at best is providing some roaming revenue.

In rural areas the situation is different.

"But experts say that even after the FCC law expires in 2008, not all
wireless providers will drop AMPS coverage in rural areas just because
they can. Most likely, they will have a solid business case for keeping
AMPS service in rural areas.

In general, our expectation is that in urban areas, AMPS will be turned
off, says Bob Schoenfield, senior vice president of business development
for Aeris.net. In rural areas and highways, the smaller regional
carriers will continue to carry AMPS for another few years (beyond
2008). There are economical reasons to do that."

This is from "http://www.etrucker.com/apps/news/article.asp?id=51944"

On 2007-03-07, John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 19:22:49 -0600, Dennis Ferguson
><dcferguson@pacbell.net> wrote in
><slrneus4v8.86.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com>:
>
>>[SNIP]
>
> We'll just have to agree to disagree.

Fine, as long as it is clear this is the sum total of your argument. You've
not said anything that disagrees with me other than that you disagree.
I can't argue with that.

Dennis Ferguson

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 19:42:08 -0600, Dennis Ferguson
<dcferguson@pacbell.net> wrote in
<slrneus63f.86.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com>:

>On 2007-03-07, John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 19:22:49 -0600, Dennis Ferguson
>><dcferguson@pacbell.net> wrote in
>><slrneus4v8.86.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com>:
>>
>>>[SNIP]
>>
>> We'll just have to agree to disagree.
>
>Fine, as long as it is clear this is the sum total of your argument. You've
>not said anything that disagrees with me other than that you disagree.

Again, we'll just have to disagree.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 17:42:02 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <45ee1870$0$27188$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>Scott wrote:
>
>> Anything to back that up, like a quote or press release? Of course not-
>> you're making it up.
>
>Standard Navas procedure.

Pot ... kettle ... black.

>In any case, urban AMPS will likely be shut down as Dennis stated, with
>RIP (retire in place) since no carrier is going to waste resources
>rolling a truck out to every tower to disable a service that at worst is
>not being used, and at best is providing some roaming revenue.

Carriers will actually most likely turn AMPS off, whether hardware is
left in place or not -- there's no business case for a failing network.

>In rural areas the situation is different.

Not really.

>"But experts say that even after the FCC law expires in 2008, not all
>wireless providers will drop AMPS coverage in rural areas just because
>they can. Most likely, they will have a solid business case for keeping
>AMPS service in rural areas.
>
>In general, our expectation is that in urban areas, AMPS will be turned
>off, says Bob Schoenfield, senior vice president of business development
>for Aeris.net. In rural areas and highways, the smaller regional
>carriers will continue to carry AMPS for another few years (beyond
>2008). There are economical reasons to do that."
>
>This is from "http://www.etrucker.com/apps/news/article.asp?id=51944"

Wishful thinking by a few users. Carriers have already announced plans
to rapidly phase out AMPS, and prudent users (e.g., AlarmNet, OnStar)
are moving to meet the sunset date.

Best you could do? At least you've finally posted a URL, so that's
progress of a sort. Try a carrier citation net time. If you can find
one.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

Dennis Ferguson wrote:
> John, I get the feeling you are grasping a bit.

Welcome to the Cingular World of John Navas.

When backed into a corner, he's obfuscates his original post to back pedal.

John Navas wrote:
> We'll just have to agree to disagree.

Translation: "I can't Google for any citations to back up my statement"

On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:21:43 GMT, DTC <no_spam@move_along_folks.foob>
wrote in <HZrHh.10081$tD2.3045@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink .net>:

>John Navas wrote:

>> We'll just have to agree to disagree.

>Translation: "I can't Google for any citations to back up my statement"

You are of course free to make whatever baseless accusations you want.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:20:58 GMT, DTC <no_spam@move_along_folks.foob>
wrote in <_YrHh.10080$tD2.68@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.n et>:

>Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>> John, I get the feeling you are grasping a bit.
>
>Welcome to the Cingular World of John Navas.
>
>When backed into a corner, he's obfuscates his original post to back pedal.

Does being a jerk come naturally, or do you have to work at it?
Enquiring minds want to know.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

John Navas wrote:
> What telephone company (by name)? I don't know of any that do that,
> except perhaps for tiny locals.

Often used by Southwestern Bell and by de facto all other BOCs.

Of course you don't know, you never worked in the industry like I have,
much less for "The Company", a term used in their publications to refer to
themselves.

On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:25:43 GMT, DTC <no_spam@move_along_folks.foob>
wrote in <r1sHh.10084$tD2.1256@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink .net>:

>John Navas wrote:
>> What telephone company (by name)? I don't know of any that do that,
>> except perhaps for tiny locals.
>
>Often used by Southwestern Bell and by de facto all other BOCs.

Yet again, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

>Of course you don't know, you never worked in the industry like I have,
>much less for "The Company", a term used in their publications to refer to
>themselves.

Yet again you would be misinformed.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

John Navas wrote:
> On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:20:58 GMT, DTC <no_spam@move_along_folks.foob>
> wrote in <_YrHh.10080$tD2.68@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.n et>:
>
>> Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>>> John, I get the feeling you are grasping a bit.
>> Welcome to the Cingular World of John Navas.
>>
>> When backed into a corner, he's obfuscates his original post to back pedal.
>
> Does being a jerk come naturally, or do you have to work at it?
> Enquiring minds want to know.

I learned it from you, pumpkin.

John Navas wrote:
> On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:25:43 GMT, DTC <no_spam@move_along_folks.foob>
> wrote in <r1sHh.10084$tD2.1256@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink .net>:
>
>> John Navas wrote:
>>> What telephone company (by name)? I don't know of any that do that,
>>> except perhaps for tiny locals.
>> Often used by Southwestern Bell and by de facto all other BOCs.
>
> Yet again, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Yet again, your standard reply when someone happens to know something that
you don't know..

>> Of course you don't know, you never worked in the industry like I have,
>> much less for "The Company", a term used in their publications to refer to
>> themselves.
>
> Yet again you would be misinformed.

Am I going to have to look for my prized "Notes on the Network" and scan
the pages that say that?

You have heard of that book, right?

DTC wrote:

> Am I going to have to look for my prized "Notes on the Network" and scan
> the pages that say that?
>
> You have heard of that book, right?

Delivering telephone directories is his concept of "working in the
industry."

My first job out of college was working in for an operating company
(GTE). My first assignment was debugging a timing problem in Strowger
switches that was causing pay phones in Orange County to refund coins,
rather than collect them, after a completed call. Unfortunately, there
was no solution, other than to wait for the few remaining Strowger
switches to be replaced (this was in the 1980's).

"John Navas" <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote in message
news:94tru2pftqudchtlhb3fag9jtfocom7rsr@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 22:12:57 GMT, DTC <no_spam@move_along_folks.foob>
> wrote in <JHlHh.124573$_73.104713@newsread2.news.pas.earthl ink.net>:
>
>>Todd Allcock wrote:
>>In telephone company lingo, its called R.I.P. - Retire In Place.
>
> What telephone company (by name)? I don't know of any that do that,
> except perhaps for tiny locals.
BellSouth and AT&T for two. Of course those may be "tiny locals" in your
world.

Don