Best cell phone / plan for pilots?

Cub Driver wrote in message . ..
On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 05:11:56 GMT, (Ben Jackson) wrote:

I have a Nokia 8260 on an AT&T plan. That phone does AMPS 800 (analog)
and TDMA 800/1900. It's got coverage almost everywhere, which is why
I have not upgraded it for almost 4 years.

I understand that, now that Cingular has acquired ATT Wireless, you
may be better off not upgrading. Any new accounts will get a phone on
the Cingular system and technology; if they are not strong in your
area, you will be out of luck.


Cingular's original digital service uses a technology called CDMA.
ATTWS's uses a very, very similar technology called TDMA. Both
networks are generally very well establish in Northern California.
However, the technologies are similar enough that they almost always
carry each other's traffic. Most all of the ATT TDMA towers will talk
CDMA. However, you need to go out of your way to get phones with these
older technologies. Right now the GSM network is what they are
pushing. There are several reasons why GSM is better. One, it has
always been the international digital standard. Europe and Asia have
used it for a while so the equipment is a bit more accessable. Second,
you can run GPRS packets across them. GPRS allows for full featured
digital service (internet browsing, sending pictures, etc). ATT
current does not even allow you to download polyphonic ring tones over
TDMA because it over runs the network. GSM is the way to go with that.
However, for my personal cell phone, I'm still TDMA. GSM is well
covered in metro areas but is playing catch up in out of the way
places. Many of the small towns we land in will not have GSM service.
Again, you really need to go out of your way to go to the back of the
cell phone store to find the old TDMA/CDMA phones. However, GSM is
growing very, very fast. I'm not sure at what point GSM will or has
overtaken (T/C)DMA in availability. Its getting pretty close. Also,
the TDMA phones generally still are dual mode (meaning they talk the
old analog technology too). That is a bad thing. You will probably
never find an analog only tower but the amps in the phone required to
talk analog is what limits the size of the phone. The GSM phones can
be much smaller. (As I understand, I'm the software guy not the
hardware guy ).

-Robert (I wrote some of the fault and provisioning software used in
CDMA and GSM activation and service assurance).