Cingular plans to start charging customers with older model cellphones five extra bucks in order to poke them towards upgrading.

On Monday, Cingular said that with of analog and TDMA use falling, “the per-customer cost of using that network is increasing considerably. That’s why we made a decision to impose this charge.”

With 57.3 million customers, Cingular can afford to slough off the unprofitable ones.

Reportedly, the surcharge only affects 8% of their customer base, the lallygags still using phones with TDMA technology or moth-balled “analog” signal.

Cingular will also stop selling replacement hand cranks for these devices.

(Thanks to Kevin!)

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