Mike Burger wrote:
You have to keep in mind, though, that T-Mobile (and its predecessors, Voicestream, etc) and Sprint never had analog service (although Sprint's phones would work on Verizon's analog network).
Sprint most likely forced roamers to use analog because then they could say "our digital connection is better".
Over the past year or so, however they've inked more and more digital roaming agreements with other carriers, and you're more likely to roam digital in many places where Sprint doesn't have their own coverage. Combined with the fact that they now offer a roaming option for $5/month (use up to 50% of your monthly airtime roaming for the one flat fee), they're now much more usable outside the major cities.
The thing, now, is that all the services that had analog (Verizon, Cingular) are the ones who have converted over to digital, and still have their analog services, to this day. One of my coworkers still has an analog Startac, that he uses.
They are no longer required to build out analog, though. They are required to keep their existing analog coverage until 2008, but they don't need to add coverage. This was a problem for me with my VZW phone here, where I'm just outside digital range of the closest tower. They have no analog capacity in my neighborhood either; more often than not I'd get a fast busy signal if I tried analog.
**SJS (Sprint PCS customer 12/00-present, Verizon Wireless customer 9/00-6/04)
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