jeffee1 Posted January 22, 2008 Report Share Posted January 22, 2008 Seems like an old post but I have a 97 Eldorado with the onstar option (GEN 1). Got the car used and it didn't have the handset. After searching junkyards and ebay for 2 years now I bought a new handset. Plugged it in with a standard straight through ethernet cable and seems to work perfectly. The handset has a "digital" led indicator on it. In the programming pdf I found for the Hughes M6200 and M6100 it states that these phones are TDMA Digital and AMPS Analog. I'm not sure about the confusion but when I turn off the "analog" option in the functions menu the phone connects with a digital call. Only problem now is getting alltel or verizon to activate it with a prepaid account since I don't need another contract (already have 3 nextel handsets). Thoughts, comments, suggestions? Seems after doing more research I think I’ve found other info that seems relevant. Most of the TDMA cellular providers are abandoning their TDMA networks along with the AMPS. Doesn't seem like the FCC's ruling gave them the authority to do this. When I read it I got the impression that cellular providers we give the freedom to abandon analog networks if they chose but TDMA is a digital technology... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thu Posted January 23, 2008 Report Share Posted January 23, 2008 I believe only AT&T used TDMA. They're fast abandoning it. They may have finished the switchover to another technology (GSM?). 2003 Seville STS 43k miles with the Bose Sound, Navigation System, HID Headlamps, and MagneRide 1993 DeVille. Looks great inside and out! 298k miles! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimD Posted January 23, 2008 Report Share Posted January 23, 2008 ....The cables, antennas, etc. will work with any cell phone.This is not the primary issue but I have to challenge the antenna part of your statement. The evolution from analog to digital cellular service occured at higher and higher frequencies. An 800 MHz (analog) antenna probably would work great with a 1.x GHz (digital) phone in a metro area where there are cell antennas on every tall building therefore producing a dense RF environment. But when you put that car and the 800 Mhz antenna in fly-over country, the antenna design difference will exhibit reduced signal levels, range, and performance with your 1.x GHz phone. A picky detail. But very real for some of our readers. Jim Drive your car. Use your cell phone. CHOOSE ONE ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cadillac Jim Posted January 23, 2008 Report Share Posted January 23, 2008 TDMA was the digital standard that preceded I95, which became the standard after 1996 or so but didn't have sufficient coverage to support car phones and the security features of OnStar until about 2000. Once digital cell technology was out there, the lower power consumption, better potential sound quality, and lower likelihood of dropped calls led the cell companies to press for dropping analog and TDMA technology. In the generic acronym sense, TDMA means Time Division Multiple Access, which is a synchronized, structured time-slot-allocation scheme that will allow multiple channels to share a frequency band, cable, or satellite communications channel. Conceivably TDMA can be implemented as an analog technology but as a specific cell phone standard of the early 1990's the digitized sound data was burst to and from the cell tower in the time slot allocated to the call. The next standard added CDMA, code division multiple access, which broadened the bandwidth required but increased the number of people that could use a given bandwidth by a factor of about three over the TDMA standard. The I95 standard added another layer, plus error-correcting codes and code block sharing, which provided greater resistance to dropped calls on cell switching, more resistance to interference and multipath (picket-fencing), while improving more on power requirements. GSM fixed all the known issues in I95 and added other features; TDMA 2000 is actually a mutliband international standard similar to GSM. Car phones used mostly TDMA until after GSM coverage became good enough for mobile use in about 2002 because CDMA and I95 tended to drop calls between cells of cars traveling over 40 mph or so, and picket-fencing could kill calls too easily. The real problem here is that GM has stopped offering Gen 6 installation in older OnStar-ready vehicles back to 1997. -- Click Here for CaddyInfo page on "How To" Read Your OBD Codes-- Click Here for my personal page to download my OBD code list as an Excel file, plus other Cadillac data -- See my CaddyInfo car blogs: 2011 CTS-V, 1997 ETC Yes, I was Jims_97_ETC before I changed cars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffee1 Posted January 23, 2008 Report Share Posted January 23, 2008 That is the real problem I suppose. I don't know if you've seen it but I stumbled onto a class action suit over this very issue. by the way Jim that's a nice ETC, it looks just like mine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OynxSTS Posted January 23, 2008 Report Share Posted January 23, 2008 Ya, the law suit will probably lose. What won't lose is all of the bad press that GM has generated about this. You pitch a very cool, very unique, very innovative life/safety tool, you mis-market it from day one, you sleep at the switch while the rest of the world goes digital, and then you draw an arbitrary line in the sand and say these cars we'll fix, the rest of you are toast. And you do this to the owners of some of your nicest/flagship cars... If you think all that is bad everything that I have read says that the latest (digital) version of OnStar is CDMA based. If you haven't noticed most CDMA carriers are either 1) Slowly converting to GSM or 2) Being bought by a GSM supplier and quickly converting to GSM Not to get into a big GSM vs CDMA debate (CDMA is technically better...) but all of the new cool phones are produced in GSM first... "Cool phones", not quality of service drives this market. Its only a matter of time before Verizon (The OnStar carrier) dumps CDMA too... GM, please tell me you spent the extra $15 per Onstar system and they are all GSM ready... Hang on... round two is about 3 years away! Easin' down the highway in a new Cadillac, I had a fine fox in front, I had three more in the back ZZTOP, I'm Bad I'm Nationwide Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cadillac Jim Posted January 23, 2008 Report Share Posted January 23, 2008 CDMA is only one layer of code on TDMA, and is a generation behind I95, the digital standard that GSM has just about replaced by now. Please don't tell me that GM is selling CDMA phone for OnStar Gen 6. If they are, and you get a new car, get Bluetooth with it, and ask if OnStar can work through your Bluetooth phone. Of course, the transmitter/receiver portion of the phone could be made an interchangeable module for future retrofit. We have seen discussions about antennas being used for different frequency bands, but in point of fact just about any antenna can be used with just about any transmitter with a matching network, which can be part of the transmitter/receiver module. -- Click Here for CaddyInfo page on "How To" Read Your OBD Codes-- Click Here for my personal page to download my OBD code list as an Excel file, plus other Cadillac data -- See my CaddyInfo car blogs: 2011 CTS-V, 1997 ETC Yes, I was Jims_97_ETC before I changed cars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OynxSTS Posted January 24, 2008 Report Share Posted January 24, 2008 Looks like CDMA too me... Having said that, if you look at the pin-outs of the analogue (not upgradable) 2001 STS and an analogue upgradeable 2002 STS every single wire is there. This BS about GM not able to upgrade the older cars is just that total BS. They are one dongle away from plug an play into all Onstar systems. GM wants us all to forget that originally these were dealer installable... What this points to is that GM loses money on every Onstar system out there... If they didn't they wouldn't be walking away from a reported 500,000 subscribers. Oh I do know of one brave sole who did snag a Onstar Module from a 2003 STS and changed the pin-outs (and connectors) on his 2000 STS to make it fit... Took his car (and the VIN of the now dead 2003) to the dealer and they upgraded it for him.. So it is NOT impossible. Easin' down the highway in a new Cadillac, I had a fine fox in front, I had three more in the back ZZTOP, I'm Bad I'm Nationwide Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texas Jim Posted January 24, 2008 Report Share Posted January 24, 2008 What won't lose is all of the bad press that GM has generated about this. Its only a matter of time before Verizon (The OnStar carrier) dumps CDMA too... GM, please tell me you spent the extra $15 per Onstar system and they are all GSM ready... Hang on... round two is about 3 years away! Three years isn't very long. I just renewed my OnStar Directions and Connections plan for 3 years. Maybe they will last long enough for my subscription to run out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OynxSTS Posted January 25, 2008 Report Share Posted January 25, 2008 Three years isn't very long. In the telecom space three years is a LIFE TIME! How many people did you know three years ago that carried a blackberry. One or two... Now look at peoples hips... Crackberries and full tex phones are EVERYWHERE now. CDMA might live beyond three years but by that time it will be severely wounded. Look what the "geeks" are backing today...iPhone's that play movies and TV. Full broadband Internet everywhere on there hip. Easin' down the highway in a new Cadillac, I had a fine fox in front, I had three more in the back ZZTOP, I'm Bad I'm Nationwide Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weephee Posted January 25, 2008 Report Share Posted January 25, 2008 Along this same line of thought, my 2003 Seville came with a cellular phone integration kit with hands free and tri-band option. I don't have it but was wondering if someone could explain tri-band and can I assume this unit would be digital rather than analog. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.