BUSINESS

NEW YORK – The network that launched the U.S. wireless industry with brick-size – and brick-heavy – cellphones 24 years ago will switch off in most of the country next year, leaving a surprising number of users in the lurch.

JULIE JACOBSON/The Associated Press

Adele Rothman says she might not have bought her 2003 Saab had she known the OnStar system in it would be shut off this coming year. The system can't be upgraded.

Older OnStar systems for cars, home alarms and up to a million cellphones will lose service starting in February under a 2002 federal decision that allows carriers to switch the spectrum over from analog to digital technologies, which would use it more efficiently.

The shutdown has caught some customers by surprise, including some owners of the about 500,000 cars whose hands-free emergency OnStar service can't be upgraded to digital.

Adele Rothman of Scarsdale, N.Y., says she bought her teenage son a new Saab in 2003 specifically for its OnStar but had no idea the car's system would stop working in five years. But General Motors Corp., which owns OnStar, did – and it knew the system would be impossible to upgrade, like many others of model year 2004 and older.

Ms. Rothman, who learned in March of the impending shutdown, said she might not have bought the car if she'd known what GM did.

"I don't think so. Not for a 16-year-old," she said.

When she complained, GM sent a $500 coupon toward the purchase of a new car.

"I was really upset because that was my tie line to him," Mr. Rothman said. "When a 20-year-old leaves the driveway, you want to feel a little secure."

Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. and Alltel Corp. are the largest carriers that still have analog networks. Alltel will take more time than Verizon and AT&T to close its network, shutting down in three stages ending in September.

The consumer products most affected by the analog sunset, aside from cars, are home alarms. The Alarm Industry Communications Committee surveyed member companies after the Federal Communications Commission's 2002 decision and found that just under a million home alarm systems used analog cellular to communicate with alarm centers. For most, the cellular link was a backup to a land line, but for 138,000 homes, the analog network was the only link to an alarm center.

The committee doesn't know how many systems have been converted since, said chairman Louis Fiore, but he believes 400,000 systems still use analog service, most as a backup.

"The larger [alarm] companies are in pretty good shape. There are so many smaller companies out there that are probably, I'd say, in denial. They just don't know about it," Mr. Fiore said.

According to the FCC, many analog alarms that have not been replaced by the time the network is shut down will start beeping to warn that they've lost the connection to the alarm center.

The Central Station Alarm Association, an alarm industry group and parent of the AICC, tried unsuccessfully to get the FCC to delay the analog sunset.

Rapid development in the field means a faster, better technology always lurks around the corner, tempting carriers to upgrade – raising the prospect that digital technologies will have even shorter lifespans than the analog network.

"If you've got a product that's going into the market for five years, for 10 years, for 15 years, how do you pick a technology that's going to be around that long?" asked Chris Purpura, senior vice president of marketing at Aeris Communications.

Aeris, in San Jose, Calif., runs a control center that manages automated wireless communications for alarm companies, truckers, manufacturers and utilities. As late as last year, more than a million of its clients' devices, like remote-readable electricity meters and refrigerated shipping containers, used the analog network.

Mr. Purpura said the next generation of wireless devices could be 10 times as big, making the challenge of the next transition even greater. General Packet Radio Service could be the next network to go, since this slow second-generation digital technology isn't compatible with newer cellular broadband networks.

"I don't think anyone wants to go through this again in five years," Mr. Purpura said.

The Associated Press