Technology Onstar Going Bye Bye - Analog cell-phone network going off air

The Helper

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NEW YORK (AP) -- When Adele Rothman bought her 16-year-old son a car in 2003, she made sure to pick one that had OnStar, the onboard communications and safety system.

What the Scarsdale, New York, resident didn't know was that the OnStar system in the car was already doomed to die. The federal government decided in 2002 to let cellular carriers shut down analog cell phone networks, used by Rothman's Saab and about 500,000 other OnStar-equipped cars, after February 18, 2008.

It's the end of the nationwide network that launched the U.S. wireless industry 24 years ago, and it leaves a surprising number of users like Adele Rothman in the lurch.

OnStar told Rothman in March its service would stop at the end of this year, in anticipation of the network shutdown in February. "I was really upset," she said, "because that was my tieline" to her son.

 
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Prometheus

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Wow, I was gona get OnStar when I got my car. =/
 

seph ir oth

Mod'n Dat News Jon
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Weren't they advertising OnStar in several different car commercials a few months ago? How whack.
 

denmax

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Okay, firstly, what's OnStar? I can read that it is something that's like a wireless link from cellphone to cellphone. SO what's the 'edit'ing use of this?

If I were to buy a car, I would buy anything. Some things should end, so why make an addon essential for buying if it's going to get overated in the future anyway?
 

DDRtists

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Okay, firstly, what's OnStar? I can read that it is something that's like a wireless link from cellphone to cellphone. SO what's the 'edit'ing use of this?

If I were to buy a car, I would buy anything. Some things should end, so why make an addon essential for buying if it's going to get overated in the future anyway?
You're not aware of what OnStar is, thats why.
OnStar is a REALLY nice feature to have. If something goes wrong, you push the OnStar button, and they send you a Towtruck. You lock your keys out? Call OnStar and give them the password and they unlock your car. Car sound funny? They "probe" your car, and it sends them all the data about your car, and they can tell you many things that many be wrong with it.

Theres also many many other things it can do, too. :)
 

Rapmaster

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Misleading headline!! :) New cars with OnStar are fine as they use the digital network. It's just the older ones that will stop working (some can be updated, and some cannot be updated.)
 

esb

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TV's are next!!!
 
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