You Can't Hear Me Now: Analog Cell Phones Go Silent

You've still got nearly a year of analog TV service, but analog cell phone service: that's gone, effective Tuesday.

To be perfectly truthful, Monday was the last day that the FCC required carriers to continue analog service. AT&T and Verizon will be shutting down their analog services this week, but Alltel is taking a phased shutdown approach to ensure that it has sufficient GSM coverage in place around the country for all the potentially affected areas after analog service is halted.

Most people aren't going to be affected, as most have already swapped out their old analog phones for digital ones. On the other hand, there are security systems in place that use cellular phones to call in case of a break-in, and some of these may have been installed with analog service.

Additionally, GM OnStar users with analog-only equipment are out-of-luck as well.

One analog service down, another to go.