This week America's two largest wireless carriers, AT&T and Verizon are planning to completely shut off their analog cell phone service.  Most cell phone users stopped using analog cellphone services years ago so this analog discontinuation won't be an issue.  Digital networks have become the mainstay for users making phone calls, sending text messages and going online to check email.  The switch to an all digital service occurred due to the fact that maintaining both an analog and digital cell phone service became an expensive operation for the the cell phone carriers. The shut down will not occur instantly, but instead the analog services will be incrementally brought down region by region.

This change will not affect Sprint, Nextel and T-Mobile customers since their wireless services do not use analog for their cell phone networks. However, a couple smaller regional carriers will continue to maintain analog signals for customers in rural areas.

Bye, bye analog... say Hello to Digital!