I've been raving about the Motorola e815 cell phones that Ali and I recently upgraded to. Ali was up in New Hampshire's White Mountains over the past few days for a work-related outing. During that time, we had no real problems reaching each other, even while she was driving to and from. I don't think that a phone's inability to fall back to analog is a problem anymore.
I'm sure that many areas of the Whites have no service. All cell phones work on line-of-sight to the towers and mountains like to get in the way of that. There _is_ some degree of signal 'bounce', though, and that's sometimes enough to establish a reliable connection even if line-of-sight is compromised.
We had one call where Ali was on the road and the conversation stutterred briefly and then died. A few minutes later, she had a good signal again. Digital signals don't degrade like analog signals do. They have a power threshold above which they work and below which they don't. If we'd been talking over an analog connection at the time, I suspect the conversation would have been overrun by static. A low signal area is a low signal area.
Analog circuitry is power-hungry. It also takes up valuable space inside the ever-shrinking cell phone chassis. It's no wonder that many manufacturers are ditching it. My primary concern was my phone's ability to function in an emergency situation. All the data aren't in yet, but my (preliminary) feeling is that a digital phone may be as functional and reliable as a tri-mode (analog fallback) phone in outlying areas.
This also has implications for those who hike with cell phones. I've previously gone on record as stating that I felt cell phones were a useful part of a hiker's arsenal, provided that said hiker didn't use them as a perceived safety factor in pushing the risk envelope. I always hike with a cell, and it's always off and double-Ziplocked for protection from moisture. No one wants to hear ringing or vibrating phones in the woods, and they sure as hell don't want to hear or see people carrying on phone conversations from a mountaintop. It's just bad manners, and a potential stoning offense.
On the other hand, cells are light, relative to the potential benefit they can provide in the event of a problem. If it hits the fan and there's a signal, help will arrive faster than if a cell wasn't present. If there's no signal, you have to fall back on training.
Modern cells provide an additional benefit in the hills. Many have decent photo and video short capability. My e815 has a 1.3 megapixel sensor, which is the same resolution of my first digital camera - and I took that bulky sucker on many a trip. While I'd wager the e815 lacks the image quality of my venerable old HP PhotoSmart, it's not _that_ bad. Plus it does movies - with sound!
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