On Tue, 2008-02-26 at 16:37 -0500, M. Adam Davis wrote:
> The FCC said they _could_ turn them off, not that they _had_ to.
> 
> Of course, they all did because they want to use the spectrum for
> other communications related services.
> 
> The licenses to the spectrum didn't revert back to the FCC, right?

Correct.

> So the phone companies will roll out new services, and they certainly
> aren't going to petition the FCC to roll it back.

No, don't expect any new service. They'll simply enable those channels
for the digital services that are already in that spectrum.

Both CDMA and GSM currently have coverage in the "analog" spectrum
(called 850MHz by the industry). Up until now some of those channels
were assigned to AMPS, most assigned to the digital service. By turning
off AMPS they'll just assign those channels to the digital service.

It does mean more capacity, so theoretically on GSM you'll get less
dropped calls, and on CDMA you'll get a stronger signal in areas that
were heavily congested.

Thanks, TTYL
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