Two years ago, digital was going to replace analog by 1998. Thanks to multiple digital standards, analog now has a rosy future. I have been told by Motorola, Nokia and NEC personnel that the bread and butter for the subscriber equipment portion of their business will continue to be analog for the forseeable future. Actually, I would think that the thought of replacing 21.5 million analog phones would be an incentive for manufacturers to use any excuse to create a new analog version of existing phones with fraud and security built in. As an aside, when the Bar Associations in NY, MA, NH and other states rule it is unethical for an attorney to discuss client matters over a cellular phone, they are not differentiating between analog and digital.
Financial responsibility is extremely fragmented in cellular.
The net result is that corporate tends not to look at the problem as something it needs to be involved in because it is regional in nature. McCaw San Francisco certainly has more fraud potential compared to McCaw Oklahoma, so let San Fran fix their problem. Second, it removes the corporate clout required to implement a solution within subscriber equipment. Since corporate usually negotiates subscriber equipment purchases, regional managers have zero chance of independently approaching a major manufacturer such as Motorola, Nokia, etc. If they are allowed such independence, their numbers and therefore bargaining power are still reduced.