The original car phones in the 8 Series use the GSM network that is still operative today. However, due to various network and frequency changes there are few places where the old car phones still work.
There's someone at bimmerforums.com who is gauging interest in an upgrade for the old E31 car phones to make them compatible with modern GSM networks. The idea is to replace the electronics in the handset with brand new developed board. Externally it would look, feel and work exactly like the old handset, yet inside is a modern cell phone that can be used on any of today's GSM networks.
The person has experience with projects like this. He develops cellphone and GPS based devices for work. He is currently looking for people who want to back the project.
Mind, it's not going to be cheap: He's thinking approximately 650 EUR per telephone with 20 people backing!
There are still a lot of questions unanswered and finding 20 people willing to back this project seems ambitious but if you ever wanted to make the old car phone work again, now is your chance.
I have no affiliation with the project and I'm still undecided whether I'd jump on-board. Here in Belgium the car phone still works but only with one provider (Orange). I had already accepted the fact that it would stop working one of these years. Besides, it's not like I use it a lot. This year I haven't made or received a single call from within the car.
I just felt this project could use some European attention (as far as I know it's posted only on the US forum even though the person is Norwegian).
If you have genuine interest or questions, please post over at bimmerforums.
Link: OEM BMW car phone modified to work with todays networks @ bimmerforums.com (the opening post is very short but a bit more details are in post #8)
