All that green is going bye-bye.
Canadian carrier Telus is going out with the old, and eventually in with the new, as their AMPS analog services have begun being shut down as of Monday. A lack of parts and parts manufacturers has made it impossible for Telus to keep the hardware running, and so they’re offering to replace the some 70,000 subcibers’ handsets with digital ones for free.
Taking a look at Telus’ existing analog coverage map, rural Quebec and Saskatchewan will be taking a big hit, but remote British Columbian cities may suffer the most as a result of analog services getting shut down. In most other areas, digital coverage will be able to make up for the phase-out, but the mountainous region of B.C. makes digital signals trickier to overlap. This could leave quite a few isolated communities without emergency 911 access, let alone standard cell coverage. Still, it’s expected that digital coverage will improve over time, but until it’s up to snuff, those in the dark will have to resort to costly alternatives, such as satellite phones.
[via BlackBerry Cool]