Cingular penalises TDMA phone users

US MOBILE operator, Cingular Wireless, said on Monday it would start charging customers with older mobile phones an extra $4.99 monthly fee as early as September 2006. Unless they upgrade their phones, of course.

The reason is simple. Most of the targeted subscribers are still using handsets that conform to the old TDMA standard. This was basically invented by Ericsson and at one point in time was the dominant mobile technology in the USA.

Now it's becoming a pain for Cingular to support those still clinging to their TDMA and AMPS (analogue) mobile phones instead of migrating to GSM.

The company promises to do deals on handset prices for those who have been with the service for a considerable time. One of the downsides to TDMA phones is that they don't support two-way SMS.

Cingular won't be able to phase out its old analogue network until February 2008 under FCC rules but it is hoping to shut down its TDMA network at the same time, too. µ