Bye Bye TDMA

at&t Wireless and Alltel finally are shutting down their old analog and first-generation cellular (TDMA) networks in February 2008. Verizon Wireless says on its Web site that it will retire its analog network on Feb. 18, 2008, and will not provide analog service after that date.

Almost nobody will notice. The carriers say a million phones out of 250 million in use might be affected. No phone capable of text messaging uses analog technology. No Sprint or T-Mobile phones use analog, either.

Carriers have been telling analog customers about the shutdown and offering them new digital service plans and phones, so it isn't clear that any active users will experience issues. There might be some "phones sitting in drawers" that users keep around for emergency 911 calling, without plans, that could be affected.

But at&t, which had the largest number of analog customers at one time, has been phasing analog out since 2001, and with the high rates of phone replacement, can't still be supporting many users on the older system.

Separately from the analog shutdown, Alltel and AT&T will finish phasing out networks that use a first-generation digital technology known as D-AMPS or TDMA (for Time Division Multiple Access).

700-MHz Bidders Surface

Some 266 bidders for 700 MHz spectrum auction have surfaced so far. Not all the bidders will content for the national C block, though. Many of the bidders are small, independent telephone companies angling for local blocks of spectrum. But a few cable companies also are on the list. Of course, over time those fragmented allocations probably will be rolled up into larger networks, as has always happened in the past.

The bidders include Google (GOOG) Airwaves Inc.; Towerstream; Vulcan Spectrum;
Alltel; AT&T Mobility Spectrum; CenturyTel Broadband Wireless; Chevron; Cincinnati Bell Wireless; Cox Wireless; Iowa Telecommunications Services; MetroPCS 700 MHz; Qualcomm
Cablevision (CSC Spectrum Holdings); Verizon Wireless (Cellco Partnership) and Advance/Newhouse.

iPhone Dings Treo and Sidekick

iPhone buyers were 10 times more likely than other new phone buyers to have previously owned a Treo and three times more likely to have owned a T-Mobile branded phone, such as the popular Sidekick model, say researchers at NPD Group.

In contrast, iPhone buyers were no more likely than the average buyer to have previously owned a Blackberry. NPD theorizes that lack of support for corporate BlackBerry servers is the reason.

Alltel and T-Mobile took the biggest churn hit. Consumers who switched carriers to buy an iPhone were three times more likely to switch from Alltel or T-Mobile than from other carriers.

Sprint and Verizon also lost customers to at&t, but not nearly to the same degree.

If early buyer trends hold up, the iPhone might be bridging the gap between content-focused feature phones and productivity-focused smart phones, NPD argues.

Personally, I still think it will be tough to develop a single device that is equally adept at melding feature and productivity device functions. Well-designed user interfaces will help, but the fact remains that such devices must embrace too much complexity and consume too much power. That means the devices will be harder to use.

Mobile phones still are consumer devices. And in the consumer device space it is a truism that a single-purpose device will outperform a multi-purpose device. Unfortunately, lots of us will continue to use two devices as a result.