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Major Problems with Cingular Network
Wabin writes "It looks like the Cingular GSM network is having serious trouble. My phone stopped working today completely, though my wife's was still able to make outgoing calls. Talking to tech support, they claimed some kind of massive failure across the country starting around 4PM yesterday and possibly a virus attack. Howard Forums is all abuzz, but there really doesn't seem to be any hard info. Glad I haven't totally given up the land line yet... redundancy is good."
It seems to be working okay here in Olympia, WA and it was working today in Seattle when I was up there. But maybe it wasn't, maybe thats why I haven't been getting any phone calls... But I did get some this evening... Anyone with troubles in the Seattle Area?
I noticed similar problems with the AT&T GSM network last week. And the week before. And for about six months, continuously, before that. I couldn't receive calls pretty much anywhere, and couldn't place calls anywhere. The problem stopped abruptly last week, but I believe it may have been coincedental to my signing up with Verizon, and swapping my Motorola GSM phone for an LG whatever-verizon-uses-that-isn't-GSM-phone.
If you live in the US, avoid GSM like the plague. Especially in Southern California. I was effectively unreachable when I had GSM. Now that I'm back to traditional service, I can almost see dropping the land line.
And of course, to make matters worse, my Motorola T720 would only try for so long to sign back on to the netowrk when it went out of range. After that it just stops, displays "Unregistered SIM", and is effecitvely shut off. So if you're out of range for 30 minutes, you're out of range all day!
</rant>
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
Yeah...apparently the problem started in Atlanta. Something went out there, and it switched over to a backup in Chicago, and I guess it couldn't handle the extra traffic so there was a cascading failure? Wait a minute, this sounds familiar... This is only on Cingular's GSM, not their TDMA. Those with TDMA and GAIT phones are able to use the service normally. Also, it seems like its only around mid america to the east coast.
I'm still without a connection, and when people call my number, they don't even get my voicemail... just a fast busy signal.
Damn you Cingular! I'm switching providers! Wait, I'm locked into a two year contract :-/ I knew that was a bad idea.
My Cingular (Chicago-area) phone quit receiving calls 10 days ago. After 3 days of their horrible tech support, I finally found a rep who said that their system had no record of my SIM card, and that the records must have "gotten lost." He re-entered them, and all was well for two days, and then the problem recurred. This time, I was told that it was a national problem that had occurred a couple of days earlier. During all of this, I've called *611 dozens of times, and the hold times are well above average. I used to work in one of Cingular's Call Center IT departments; I just emailed a friend who's still there to see what's going on...
Cingular has been fine in Californa for the last two days. I've probably made 30 calles, and sent 20 messages. No problems.
No reason to lie.
Our group worked for the last 2 days trying to find out why 1 market was down, (cough) chicago (cough), everything looked correct, no errors on our side.
Finally (after 20 hours) we traced it down to Cingulars HLR. Just imagine some mobiles that couldnt connect to Cingulars HLR, they report problems to the roamers network nodes, and roamer network nodes alarm and throttle connections. All the sudden, Cingulars HLR now causes outages on other roaming partner telcos. Nice domino effect.
Right now, the push is to get the hardware up and running, security and availability is the next step. And trust me, the monkeys running the show are busy as hell with duct tape and bailing wire, trying to keep the network running.
As a matter of fact, about thirty seconds after loading this story I got a call on my Cingular GSM phone from one of my friends who also has a Cingular GSM phone.
"If Deutsche Telecom can get it right in Germany, then why not in the US?"
Because the US is 4x the size of Western Europe and has less people.
"It's not like it's cheaper in the US, au contraire."
It actually is. At least when I looked into plans with major providers (Vodafone, T-Mobile) about a month ago, what we get in the US is far cheaper than what is offered in Europe.
For example:
T-Mobile Baisc Plus (USA)
$30
Do pay for incoming calls
300 Peak
Unlimited Off-Peak/Weekend (9pm-6am)
GPRS = $3 / mo for 1MB, $10 / mo for unlimited
No Long Distance In USA
No Roaming In USA, $.49 in North America, $.99 in Europe
T-Mobile Everyone 100 (UK)
21 GBP = $34.87
Don't pay for incoming calls
150 peak first year, 100 peak thereafter
0 Non-Peak
GPRS 0.75UK = $1.24 *per kilobyte*
No Long-Distance in UK
No Roaming in UK, 0.69GBP = $1.14 USD in rest of Europe
Let's recap
US Plan Advantages:
Cheaper
2x as many peak minutes
Unlimited (vs. 0) non-peak minutes
GPRS that's a lot cheaper
No long distance in a larger area
No roaming in a larger area
Cheaper to use in Canada/Mexico (by far) and even Europe
UK Plan Advantages:
Calling Party Pays
Frankly, I think that the US plan is a far better value. For $10 a month, you can even add unlimited calling *anytime* to other T-Mobile phones in the US (e.g. when I call my friends, it doesn't cost a thing).
I have found T-Mobile's coverage to be perfectly acceptable. I know that some experience signal issues, but, quite frankly, I have not had any problems. No, it's not universal, but it works damn well.
"why is it that i can go to the middle of nowhere in europe (scandinavia more precisely) with my t-mobile phone and get excellent coverage"
Ever been to Chimayo, NM? It's the middle of nowhere. Literally. There's 1 town within 20 miles. It has 900 people. And yet they have reliable T-Mobile GSM and GPRS service. This is not universal, but it's more common than you think.
One reason Sprint and Verizon phones get better converage is because of CDMA. CDMA *is* a better technology than GSM. It handles twice as many people per cell and the cells can be far larger (3x+). Add to that the faster data service and better call quality, and you begin to understand why CDMA is the preferred technology in the USA.
Post Summary:
- Mobile service *isn't* more expensive in the US. From my experience, it's cheaper in the US. Please show me otherwise.
- CPP is nice, but, quite frankly, it's becoming irrelivent in the US. From unlimited nights and weekends to the 600 peak minutes I get to the free calling to and from other T-Mobile phones, I have *never* run over my minute limit. And I call quite a bit. Also, in the US, calling a mobile phone is just like calling a local phone. It's free locally, and cheap long-distance ($.05/min).
- We have unlimited GPRS. I have yet to see an unlimited GPRS plan in Europe. If you know of one, please show it to me.
- We *do* have GSM. With SIM cards. 3 Providers. And GPRS. And 3G CDMA. The US has the largest 3G CDMA networks (Sprint and Verizon). 1XRTT may not be as fast as EVDO, but it *is* technically 3G.
So stop this line of "the US has primitive wireless". It hasn't been true for quite some time now.
At first I thought it was the phone, as it started to drop calls, not ring when people called, and then it started to automatically turn itself off. I went in to the the store owned by Cingluar, I was there for 5 minutes and I had a new handset. This was about the middle of August. Now, this handset is having the same problems and my Fiance's phone has had nothing but problems too. (Her's sets off alarm clocks and electronic devices).
I live and die by my Cell phone as I use it as my Only phone, business and personal because I am a consultant and often out to visit with clients on a daily basis and perfer to work from coffee shops when ever possible, and to have people call and the phone not even ring has cost me in terms of business and just generally annoying.
So I finally we both get fed up, so both my Fiance and I walk into store and politely complain about the handsets, and the rep camly states that "They have been having issues with their network and voice mail". I explain, that since this is my one and only phone and I use it for business purposes that I cannot afford to have this type of service and wanted to know about switching handsets. Well, we "couldn't trade in our handsets" and would cost us retail, about $250 - 300 depending on what model, to trade buy something else.
Then I asked him, "How much is it to terminate the agreement?" and he responded studdering $150. And I then replied, "So it would be cheaper for us to break the contract and go to Alltel, then?" and he responded with silence for a few seconds then answered "yes" and then explained that it was problems with the network, not the phones.
I then asked him, "Look at it from my perpective. I am a consulant and if someone can't reach me, I loose money. Even a small contract usually totals several thousand dollars." And then I got the "any time with new technology, system, there is going to be problems" and I said, "This isn't a new system. Europe has been using it for quite sometime. In fact I used it when I was there working/studing abroad this time last year and it was great, I had no problems, so why are you? Why are you requiring all customers trade up for new phones that don't work?" He didn't have an answer.
My Fiance and I then went to AT&T, which isn't much better from what I have heard and way more expensive, and Alltel, which is pretty close to that of Cingular as far as price goes (about $5 difference a month) and for my Fiance is actully a tad bit cheaper.
That was Thursday and I didn't want to make a judgement based on emotion, because I ticked at the rep that gave me the run around on why the network isn't working even though its not his fault, and looked at the fact of the time it would take to call all of my clients and tell them I have a new number and the fact it would cost me about $8.50 more a month with Altell and decided to stick it out for a bit, but things have only been getting worse.
My fiance tried to call me 4 times today, only 1 got through and i continue to drop calls left and right. Before, I rarely had dropped calls unless I was in the middle of the sticks, now I get them all the time.
Bottom line, after reading that this is not just a local problem and speaking with several other providers in the area, that Monday morning my fiance and I are going to go back to the Cingular dealer and break our contract. Yeah its going to cost us $300, but both of us use it for business (she's a wedding planner) and losing just one customer for either of us will be an oppertunity cost of way more than $150. At the very least I go get to expense the cost off my taxes as a business expense so, I guess I break even on paper.
The only thing that sucks, is I just had a new set of business cards printed...always my damn luck...
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- Explanation
- Explanation with attached threat
- Carry out threat
The trick is to choose your targets, and do it all with good grace and a sense of humour. If you've done it right, not only will you keep your job, but you'll probably be known as that guy who knows his stuff and can take firm and decisive action.(However, I suspect that this time next year I'll be having the following discussion in a pub somewhere
"I survived 3 rounds of layoffs!"
"But weren't there 4 rounds?"
"Yes...."
Last week, our manager told us "there isn't a morale problem, there's a negativity problem, and if you're negative it's your fault!". Now, I'm no good at taking hints, but I think I see something that looks a bit like writing on that wall over there...)
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
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Was?
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