I have carried a cell phone for years for almost solely for emergency
use. Don't even know how many years I have had it, shows only 6 hours
and a few minutes on it. Today tried to use it and it was
inoperable. A guy with me tipped me off that ALL old phones are now
inoperable as of a couple weeks ago.

Per him. CPs were all changed over to digital and the old analog ones
no longer work. I presume that info was publicised somewhere but I
sure didn't see or hear it.

Harry K