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Cingular-AT&T Wireless Merger Complete
bigmase521 writes "PRNNewsWire, Phonescoop.com, and this thread on Howardforums.com, are reporting that the Cingular/AT&T Wireless Merger is now complete. Cingular bought out AT&T Wireless for ~$41B to become the nations largest cellular provider. Details of the merger, and full press coverage, including the audio of this afternoon's conference call can be found here, and Cingular and AT&T customers can see what is/isn't changing for them at newcingular.com."
Its too bad this could not have taken place sooner. I dumped AT&T a few months ago due to very poor customer service and because AT&T had absurdly high rates for international calling when I travel (calls from New Zealand to the US were something like $8.00/minute with AT&T) I went with T-Mobile at the time and have been for the most part satisfied, although coverage in remote areas of the American West is weak due to a less well developed GSM network. After reading an article in the Wall St. Journal (not linked because its a subscription article) this morning, it turns out however, even if I had remained with AT&T nee Cingular I would have had to deal with the same coverage issues because Cingular will move their customers from TDMA phones to GSM phones.
So, just like when the TDMA markets were rolling out some years ago, it took a couple years to expand them to remote areas. I suspect fairly uniform GSM coverage throughout remote areas in the near future. Perhaps if Cingular provides better service and lower rates, they might win myself and many others back.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I have AT&T, and the area I live in (Los Angeles County) has lots of Cingular zones. Whenever my phone in on a Cingular network, I have to dial the area code of people I am trying to reach who are in the same area code as me. If you try to just dial the number without the area code, Cingular says it cant connect.
This just happened to me again today, so this merger may be complete business-wise, but there are still bugs to work out of the network.
Vonal Declosion
they can compromise networks FAST so we cal all get better coverage.
Nothing for you to see here, Please move along.
Funny thing, back then Ma-Bell was broken down for anti-trust reasons, now all these giants are bigger than what Bell Labs ever was.
And they are all merging. That's a very scary thought.
I think a few years from now, almost all the business will be controlled by just a few corporations.
I personally am not sure if that would be a good idea, that would certainly put smaller companies and businesses out, and these would not stand a chance against the big corporations.
Not too sure how I feel about this.
What does this mean for the AT&T edge network? I still dream of having high speed wireless everywhere...someday. Oh, and not too expensive.
Okay, so it's the biggest in the nation.
Being a huge fan of bigger-dick contests, I'm just wondering what the biggest cellular company in the world is. Is this one it? Anyone know?
I use T-mobile, but I hate it just as much when I'm in the West Coast.
Where I'm (Atlanta), T-mobile provides quite decent coverage. However, I've observed that when I'm in California T-mobile simply acts up. Horrible, horrible service.
Wonder how Verizon is, though.
..oh, I just can't do it. My wife and I use Verizon. It costs too much. We can call each other for "free" -- as long as we pay $100/month, combined. The coverage is ok.
sigs, as if you care.
The rationale of this move, according to an analysis of the merger done by Businessweek at0 4/nf20041026_3765_db016.htm
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/oct20
"The Atlanta-based carrier has landed exclusive rights to the new Motorola Razr V3 and the Sony Ericsson se710a. Both are high-end multimedia phones expected to lure sophisticated buyers. The Motorola Razr is a design triumph. It's just a half-inch thick when closed. Open, it's as thin as a Q-Tip. Yet it manages to pack in a VGA camera with 4x zoom, 3D graphics capability, and 22 kilohertz polyphonic speaker technology."
Its merger with AT&T Wireless will give Cingular 47.6 million subscribers, catapulting it past the 41 million customers that current market leader Verizon Wireless has. But that status might not last long unless Cingular can keep subscribers from bolting to Verizon and others. Cingular is plagued by above-average customer defections. [...] its churn rate edged up from 2.7% in the second quarter to 2.8% in the third, while Verizon's is hovering around a more wholesome 1.5%.
Mergers are dangerous : you gain benefits (in this case, exclusive handhelds and a big subscriber base), but can go wrong. Only time will tell if the benefits outweighted the disadvantages in this case.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
I live in a regular brick house (NOT in the basement or with my mom). I get zero-to-no service at all here. I have to walk two blocks down the street to get 1 bar, 4 blocks for two bars, and 5 blocks for full service.
My phone works fine everywhere else, but I swear AT&T hates me or my house. I've had them out to my house three times to check the signal and they always say it's fine. Maybe Cingular has a better network/customer service policy.
I hate T-Mobile worst of all because of their insane prices on WiFi hotspots. Don't they know crap like that will drive people away from all their service, not just the one they rip people off of?
I must cay, as an AT&T cuctomer, I feel ctrange today...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I came back from the recent digitallife show with pictures of said RZR: http://www.aixgaming.com/gallery/digital_life_2004 /aaz and I really loved it. I was saddened by the 30+ great looking Motorola phones however as they were all GSM and TDMA and none worked with my current Verizon service. Seeing as my co-worker's new Cingular phone is the only one out of the group's (Sprint/Verizon) phones to work in our basement datacenter, I may have to give them a try and pick up one of these snazzy models while I'm at it.
If Bell and Telus merged would you call it Belus?
Call me and my voicemail! 914-713-6795. (wow, I have the balls to post my voip number on
How is Cingular regarding bluetooth? AT&T? Do they pull a Sprint-Bitch(TM) or Verizon-Bitch(TM) and purposely cripple bluetooth? As a GSM network, I'm hoping they leave their phones' bluetooth virgin and pure so I can sync, use in new bluetooth enabled car, etc.
The merger could mean I will, in New York City, be saturated with reception goodness. Each company on it's own was "ok to good" but overlap the two and Verizon IMO is shaking like the bluetooth criplin' bitch it is.
*hopes and prays*
"Q: Why do I need to get a new wireless phone when I want to get Cingular's current rate plans or services? A: Cingular's rate plans and services require unique software in your wireless phone to function properly. Unfortunately, AT&T Wireless phones are not equipped to support many of the benefits of Cingular's voice and data services. Therefore, to take advantage of the latest services Cingular offers, a new handset is required." Hmm... So Cingular has it's own OS running on the phone? Right... I would be more inclined to think that ATT has disabled several features of the phone (like #646#, which works on almost all other GSM networkds). I'm sure there's a way (probably easier than a ROM flash) to re-enable these. But Cingular refuses to do this... wonder why ($$$ ATT was kinda pricey). I wonder how long until there are sites up "Change your ATT F0ne to Cingular... Get Rollover Minutes!!" Hopefully this merger will clear up some issues I have been having while they were getting ready to merge. When I got my ATT phone, this July, I was told that if I saw Cingular on the screen, it was exactly the same as seeing ATT Wireless on the screen (after a $430 bill, I found out that this wasn't exactly the case) and that Cingular and ATT had started sharing towers. Only problem is that my ATT phone was programmed in a such a way not to choose the strongest signal, but to choose ATT first, and then if there was no signal on that, go to Cingular.
In Seattle, 1 bar sometimes, occasionally as many as three bars (celebration time!) in the house I share there, then ... zero. Even in the same spot in the house; conversations longer than 5 minutes there are pretty rare without at least one dropped connection.
In primary residence of El Paso, much better. Now, El Paso may be flatter and therefore easier to cover, but I'd hate to be a national cell carrier with awful coverage in Seattle! Sure, there are hills and rain and trees -- BUILD MORE TOWERS, because there are also lots of young urbanites with cell phones.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I don't have the time or energy to RTFA (8am class tomorrow) but I assume that only AT&T's wireless subsidiary was purchased.
That said, I must admit my interest is speculative only. I don't own a mobile phone, nor do I plan to until I need it as a matter of profession. You wouldn't believe how many people walk mindlessly around campus, oblivious to the Real World(tm) because they're so engaged in the cellphone conversations. Makes me sick, especially since as a bicyclist, these normally sober and aware individuals turn into slalom cones.
Sleepy rant complete. 'Night all.
May the threads progress competently.
4,3,2...1
~m
I'm on Cingular, and I have good signal strength everywhere but at work. At work, I can pick up AT&T Wireless just fine (must have a repeater in the building or something, because it's very strong, and no other cell network shows up). Does this mean that I can now use the AT&T network without worrying about roaming charges? Maybe I can finally answer my cell at work, rather than waiting for it to ring through to my work phone! (it takes 5+ rings before it forwards, after which most people will hang up.)
My wife (boy, it feels strange to say that) is from Canada, and before we got married, I used to call up there all the time. I recently renewed my contract w/ ATTWS, because as recently as Sept., ATTWS was the only mobile provider I could find that offered a plan allowing the user toll-free calling to .ca and no roaming while there, either. I didn't want to renew after the merger, and risk not having that option available to me.
It used to be an extra $20 a month, then when I switched to GSM, they'd lowered it to $10. Now I think it's only like $7/mo, which is a real bargain. I think it's called their "North America" plan or something, now.
Just a heads up for those who might find such a service useful. I've been asking for a few months now at both ATTWS and Cingular stores whether the new company would offer a similar plan, but no one knew for sure.
Cingular confirms it, competition is dying :)
Bear in mind that this is an SBC (i.e. Southwestern Bell) and BellSouth joint venture buying a former subsidiary of AT&T.
Also bear in mind that the RBOCs have been whittled down by merger to those two, Verizon, and Qwest. How much longer until this becoimes three, or two, or even one, if the feds think that the cell phone companies are the "competition"?
That blast came from the Death Star! That thing's operational!
"Cingular and AT&T customers can see what is/isn't changing for them at newcingular.com" It looks like for both services, nothing at all will change except a new name on the AT&T bills (the AT&T customers will get a change if they switch their calling plans). As an ardent cell phone geek, I've spent time with both companies - two years with AT&T, and now going on one with Cingular. Both companies were pretty much the same. Same service (great), same wonderfully geek-satisfying equipment (as opposed to Verizon with some really cheap crappy stuff, wholly absent of Nokia and Sony Ericsson), and almost same plans and prices. Very minor differences even there. The newcingular site claims that the end user will literally sense no change. If that's true, I'm staying with Cingular for a long, long, looooooong time. They already rock.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
What's frustrating for me is that a few weeks before they first announced this, I, having been COMPLETELY FED UP with Cingular and their terrible, possibly unethical billing practices, I decided to drop them mid-contract and signed up w/ AT&T.
I just can't win.
Engineering and the Ultimate
They sold off their long distance service, then their cable and local phone service, now their wireless. Do they still do anything?
I switched over from AT&T to Verizon about 6 months ago, just before the merger was announced. Back then AT&T service was horrible here in NJ, I constantly had low signal and dropped calles. This merger should make Cingular the largerst cellular phone provider, but I'll have to wait and see if the service gets any better. I have Verizon now and love the service, but the prices are highway robbery. If Cingular can offer the same service as AT&T at a lower price, I see a lot of people switching over.
Free Desk
Now the largest and crappiest network ever!
I'd be rich if I had a nickel every time someone asked me to call them on a real phone when I was using my ATTWS cell phone.. 'You sound like you're in a tin can!'.
Lets hope Cingular can bring something better to their service.
"... and Cingular and AT&T customers can see what is/isn't changing for them at newcingular.com."
The ONLY thing I'm concerned about here is getting the unlock codes to my Nokia 3360. I asked of course, and their answer was no. I've already had my year of service, and now I have a paperweight I can't use, even on those "pay as you go" plans.
I have more freedom with a regular phone.
I live in chicago and I despise me Cingular service. When I'm driving home at 6:30pm on Lake Shore Drive and calling someone (don't lecture me about driving while talking, traffic was crawling), and I havea FULL signal bar, I still drop calls. When I called support they said this:
"Well sir, the network is increidbly busy so you're gong to lose calls like that. Try you call later."
My signal fades from full to nothing at different parts of my apartment. I'm on the 18th (top) floor of an apartment complet just north of down town and I still have to walk around in my place hoping to find a decent signal.
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
I for one welcome our new cellular overlords.
All your Sybase are belong to us.
"I was talking of the phenomenon of large-mergers, which could be stiffling to smaller companies simply because all it would take is a bunch of lawsuits to kill innovation. We already see it happening."
And what lawsuits could a big company institute that wouldn't come back and bite them?
How much longer until Cingular is Singular?
I had been wondering why all the AT&T Wireless employees in my mall were looking scared. This probably means a lot of AT&T stores will be closing.
ATTWS was the only mobile provider I could find that offered a plan allowing the user toll-free calling to .ca and no roaming while there, either
.ca? HAHA, fucking dork! Nice :)
Hahaha, how fucking geeky are we when we refer to other countries by their domain?!?
for about half of you...unlock your phone. look at it. notice anything different?
/that was quick.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
...but I couldn't help it. I went to the website and clicked the "I'm an AT&T customer" (I recently left Cingular for AT&T).
They had a list of bullet points and then a whole page devoted to how much better my life is going to be after this merger. I swear, there were about 64 kilobytes of text devoted to listing all the positives of this merger.
That's when it struck me that companies really need to read the Cluetrain Manifesto. I really would be interested in the six worst things that are going to happen to me, so that I can be prepared for it.
Take, for example, when I first signed up with AT&T. Plan: $65/month all told. First bill comes. $300. WTF? Everything that could go wrong, did. They put me on the wrong plans. They didn't count my mobile-to-mobile minutes. They signed me up for about 17 extra plans I didn't need or ask for. Not to mention that "Federal fund recovery fee" which is essentially AT&T's way of saying "How come restaurants get to charge you 15% extra for tips, and we don't??? Oh, wait. We do. We'll just charge a tip on every bill. Nice."
Now Cingular is going to take this bumblefuck of a corporation and incorporate it into its everyday operations.
And things are going to go smoothly? I don't think so.
This is Tweedle-dee meets Tweedle-dum, and they're in charge of your critical wireless communications. Be prepared to be pissed off.
fifth sigma, inc.
Some time back, I was with Cingular, but I decided their service sucked hardcore and wanted to go with someone else. I decided that AT&T had the best rates and the right coverage area, plus my downstairs neighbor got great reception with his phone. After they screwed up my online order three - count 'em - three times, I decided to cancel my order(s) and go with Sprint. About two days later, the first news reports hit the wire about Cingular buying out AT&T Wireless. Glad I dodged that bullet.
What's even funnier is that now, months later, I still get bills in the mail for $0.00 from AT&T Wireless.
I'll be visiting the U.S. soon for 6 weeks or so, and want a cheap(?) connection with national roaming (no phone needed) along the lines listed above.
/.-ers?
Both Cingular's and ATT's (old) websites are un-navigable when looking for something this specialized, in my book.
Any recomendations of deals from
Its worth mentioning that AT&T still owns the rights to the AT&T Wireless name and will re-emerge in the near future as AT&T Wireless but basically reselling Sprint's service.
Ah! The confusion!
-
aphex
I Steal Music!
How much longer until this becoimes three, or two, or even one, if the feds think that the cell phone companies are the "competition"?
If you are a voter in the USA and can slip, Mario-like, though the Jim Crow upgrade surrounding your poll then next Tuesday is your big chance to do something about it. Let no (R) remain! Sinclair felt it here, the monopobrands are feeling it abroad, now let's bring it to the representatives.
Hands free calling?
They make headsets for that. Besides, shouldn't you just pull over anyway, for your safety and that of those around you?
I had no problems with AT&T Wireless. I did, however, have a big problem with Crapular, er ah Cingular, and refused to become one of their customers. I ported my number to SprintPCS. I know they have the 2nd worst customer service, but they had what I needed, and I know how to work their call center system. Alas, Verizon doesn't service my state so I couldn't pick them. It's interesting that Verizon used to be GTE, perhaps the worst telephone company to have ever existed. But they merged with Nynex and apparently have a good reputation now. Well, US Worst, er US West, er no now Qwest had the most horror stories that I heard for a landline phone company and Cingular the worst for a cell phone company.
To paraphrase George Orwell's Animal Farm: "All phone companies are evil. Some are more evil than others."
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I really hope this changeover occurs before Oct 31, because I don't want the battling towers again.
*Lumbergh voice* What's haaaaaaaaappening, Peter?
My advice to Cingular on this buyout (if they'd have it?) Completely stomp all AT&T customer-facing EVERYTHING into irretrievable dust, and replace it with Cingular everything. Every drop of software, to the point of formatting any hard drive infested with any AT&T software or marketing. Drop every stupid, confusing plan, and replace it with an equivalent Cingular plan. Burn every marketing brochure, and hang on to the resumes of any former AT&T marketing executive just to ensure they're prominently featured front and center on your blacklist. "Unwanted" posters might not be going too far.
I have had the CRAPPIEST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER from AT&T Wireless. Bar none. I have gotten more useful, helpful, timely and factual information from a WalMart greeter. I can't blame the poor salescreature who I bought my phones from. It's their process that is the most horrendous piece of crap application ever devised by a bunch of marketing VPs. I tell you if any coworker of mine were to emit an application as unfriendly as that they'd be gone in a heartbeat, maybe less. This poor lady had to spend 25 minutes PER PHONE to enter a half page of customer information. Tough stuff, like name, address AND ZIP code. To do that, she had to click through literally dozens of pages of options she couldn't explain to me; she misunderstood (and misguided me) about their confusing plethora of plans, and to top it all off, she was one of two people in the store.
As it was, I waited over an hour just to get to her, then other people had to wait over 90 minutes before my transaction was completed. The reason I don't blame her is when she called the 1-800-DUH number to answer my questions, they couldn't help her either! And she's worked in the store for well over a year. How hard can it be to sell a goddamn phone??? "Push these buttons, pay this amount." God, I'm still burning over that waste of my life.
As far as customer service on their help lines? I don't think so -- I waited over three hours on hold one night to try to get them to fix the plan the saleslady eventually misclicked. If I wasn't locked in an old contract, I'd have dropped them for T-Mobile in a heartbeat. As it was, after all the headaches were added up it seriously would have been worth my time to pay the $174 they would have charged me for an early switch.
Technically, I've had very good luck with AT&T. I'd had steadily improving coverage with my PCS phone for the last three years, so I've no complaints with their network. That is, until I got sucked into their GSM plan ("mMode"). My coverage is now a tiny, tiny area immediately surrounding Minneapolis/St. Paul, although even that's been improving over the last four months. Now, if Cingular just has a decent GPRS plan ... well, a fellow can dream, can't he?
Anyway, when this AT&T contract is up it's "Hello T-Mobile!" and "good riddance to bad rubbish, AT&T Wireless." That is, if Cingular doesn't improve the situation considerably.
John
I used to be a T-Mobile subscriber; excellent customer service. I'm unsure, however, if they have data with their "Pay as you go" program. Otherwise it fits your requirements.
Well my friend, unlike you I've stuck with the att system, and I've been working with the retarded child of that system: Suncom. I live in Virginia, so this merger is supposed to directly affect me since Suncom itself is going to dissapear in the State of Virgina. I'm not quite sure what's going to happen to me .. or my plan .. or my SUPER SHITTY service, but even if they were to take my phone and slam it into a wall I'd probably be better off.
Anyway, I'm posing the question you, slashdotters, what's next for the Suncom? Aiiee?
Well it's second only to referring to cities by their Airport codes (SFO, LAX, DEL, MUM, HKG)...
You also forgot the outsourcing of any remaining call-centre services, billing and payroll....
My Favourite Meme
Rollover minutes are a fair, humane feature. The equipment both Cingular and AT&T offered has always had that certain geek factor not provided by most other providers (though T-Mobile looks pretty good in that respect).
The thing is, I've been at Verizon for over two years as a refugee from some truly horrible Cingular service. Specifically, I had terrible luck trying to find an optimal place to use my phone, a problem I haven't had at all with Verizon.
I'd love to get a Sony/Ericsson Bluetooth phone, something that Verizon just doesn't offer (their Motorola phones' Bluetooth implementation seems to be gimpy). But without decent reception, well, it wouldn't be much of a user experience. I'm going to be watching what develops here closely. If Cingular gets its act back together with regards to reception, sure, I'll go back.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
It's because the other schmuck submitted the article before you did. You know /. holds articles and releases them on a schedule, right? They're not posted the minute they're accepted.
"Its worth mentioning that AT&T still owns the rights to the AT&T Wireless name and will re-emerge in the near future as AT&T Wireless but basically reselling Sprint's service."
Does this involve cocoons and an alien queen?
Thanks Borg-like telecommunications conglomerations!
Whatever happened to the reasonable sounding conspiracy theory that AT&T Wireless bungled their CRM upgrade last year in order to sell the company? Upper management overrode their IT dept's plan for a gradual, piecemeal upgrade that would allow fallback and concurrent use of the older rev of Siebel. Instead, they were ordered to whack it in across the board and grab the oh shit handles.
I hope that Cingular/AT&T accelerate the roll out of GSM 800 ... otherwise it'll end up being just a city network. One of the main reasons that attracted me to AT&T in the first place is the "old fashioned" TDMA digital network with analog roaming for one single reason: it's more likely to get a signal 'out in the sticks'.
Now what would be classified as 'out in the sticks'? Try Cherokee, NC. It's nestled in the Grreat Smoky Mountains, is home to a casino, what I would consider a major tourist center. GSM service stops (at least for Cingular) a little west of Asheville. At least I got a single analog dot on the AT&T in analog mode (though most of the time it did say no service). I think things were better with my wife's SprintPCS phone (analog & CDMA) last time she went over.
Another "Rural" area? Eastern NC and the Outer Banks. There's a whole stretch east of Rocky Mount and west of Manteo that have no GSM service from either Cingular, or AT&T. And Suncom haven't even built their licensed network yet! Down from Nags Head, NC to Ocracoke is another GSM blank spot.
So the strategy for Cingular/ATTWS IMO for these rural areas needs to be:
a) roll out GSM800 where possible.
b) Get a GSM 800/1900 phone with analog out there, and maybe even with CDMA 800/1900 also.
Mark.
I used to work for AWS/McCaw, and have been a customer of theirs for about 10 years. But I dumped them two weeks ago for T-mobile. Why? Rates, service, general disregard for customers. The billing systems were a disaster when I was there some years ago, and the errors are still pretty regular. But the final straw was data services. Late to the GSM game, AWS still has relatively high voice rates to defray the change in infrastructure from TDMA to GSM, and charges $85/mo for GPRS service. As I sit here in the not-a-hotspot park and type this on my zaurus (bluetooth->T610->GPRS->tmobile), I'm paying less than 1/4 of the AWS data rates for constant connectivity. Sorry guys, too little, too late.
Jon
I think not...(*poof*)
That being said, if someone called in, freaked out and was a dick and didn't want to hear anything but "Here's free service for a year, your colon tastes mighty fine, sir!", then threatened to go to AT&T, I just kept my orange trap shut and winked at the tiny Nelson Muntz on my shoulder
Not knowing your circumstances, we'll refrain (as with any large company, some people do get squashed).
I wonder if there's a mercenary market for reps... "I read you bill, ten dollar.... eet's beeling correctly, senior... haahahaaahahaaaaa..."
I run the SGSNs, GGSN's, DHCP and DNS, so I have a nice viewpoint of the merger.
AWS built out EDGE before Cingular.
AWS has the larger data network with more coverage.
AWS has more RAN hardware than cingular.
AWS launched UMTS, Cingular said they would continue it.
AWS launched global roaming before everyone else.
AWS has the largest wap/mmode content around.
AWS has location based services, wifi, and many other services.
AWS has many of the fortune 500 companies as customers.
AWS Hired an outsourcing VP 2 years ago, they ran IT into the ground, crippled customer support. Customer support use to be live, you could get people to fix your issues, it was going the way of automation and lower paid support centers. Then they started forcing contracts and fucked up billing for customers, no wonder usnet has tons of complaints.
The thing that pissed me off, they ran the company into the ground. Then the CEO's take almost 90 million each, while every employee that bought stock lost money. (Buy at 29, Cingular pays 15)
Our CEO's hired the worst marketing firm in history, fluffy sheep anyone? I wanted to see a damn van fully loaded with RF gear, pull over and leave the "Can you hear me now" guy in dust. We do drive tests all over. Cant hire enough people quick enough to expand the network. (BTS Vendors, thats a post in itself...)
Sad, it was a great company they ran into the ground to make CEO money and split. I started there 6 years ago after the mccaw buyout, been in operations ever since.
Top if off, Cingular has been calling our network substandard to theirs. Who are they joking? I talk to the same freaking vendors...
I'm not even going to post anonymous.
I have Cingular.
I love the service.
I especially love the SIM card type phones.
Cingular/AT&T offer the best technology for phones as far as I can see.
I also like the fact that Apple is in close partnership with Cingular.
I do have one problem though.
I recently had to pay an $850 phone bill due to a Cingular mistake. I kept getting billed for a 000 000 0000 number. They admitted it. I had told them this has been going on for quite a while, but since I have had below plan minute useage (until August) my bill was just being paid.
They claimed that they could only do 3 months worth of removing calls (that's great accept I realized it had stolen almost 400 rollover minutes)
I put the bill into dispute.
They ended the dispute without telling me - turned off my phone service, charged me $30 to turn my phone back on.
For the week that my phone was down (had to get the money up to pay the bill) this message greeted customers:
"The number you are trying to reach is not a working number, please check the number and try your call again"
This most likely cost me a $1000 in business (proveable) as I have only a cellphone - and I have had the same number for over 8 years 905 APPL (i'm an Apple Consultant)
Does anyone know who I can reach high up to complain and possibly get my situation worked out more favorably?
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
I use T-Mobile (long story), and on my phone, even before the merger, I could go in to the phone and manually select the network I was on. I got two options - T-Mobile and AT&T. I called customer service to check that I wouldn't be charged roaming for this, and since I'm on a national plan, I'm not.
So I had to ask myself - is T-Mobile any worse than AT&T/Cingular because it seems to be able to piggyback off of it's network, or at least the AT&T part.
A magazine article I read several months back that mentioned the merger said that the increased coverage (Cingular + AT&T) would benefit some rural customers, but Verizon would still likely be king of the urban sprawl. I also found it odd that AT&T promotes it's "New GSM America" that "Added umpteen new towers" for the "bets network ever" and "how many bars do you have?" but Cingular, who has the worst reputation (everyone knows Verizon = Good, Cingular = Bad) said nothing about it.
Just goes to show you, all those high school dropouts that thought employment was easy have a long way in front of them.
;)
Sis works at an AT&T store with her husband. Both college degrees. I get to hear about some of their more colorful customers now and then... and they make more money than I do
I'll field this one. Suncom would become a third tier of Cingular, so it no longer will actually have that name. Instead you will be moved to a Cingular Transitional plan(which should offer you some pretty decent promotions), and your service area should improve.
-- An AWS employee
yes that will be the case, but do not hold me to my word yet, i am not a 100% sure of when this is going to be in effect. watch the news and cingulars website to be sure.
AWS employee
yeah, the outsourced call centers in canada are about to get the great big shaft. theyd better have some sort of severance package for this thing if they are going to dump us. my call center is the largest remaining TDMA center for all of AWS, and we consistently put out top level statistics. Funny thing is, its in Canada.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns999 96576
Someone should educate this woman.
CellularOne managed to rid itself through an aggressive marketing campaign paid for by many unhappy customers. Their slick advertisements made everyone forget that Cingular is just a new front for the CellularOne company.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
You have now fallen into the black hole of horrible service. You might as well stop using the phone.
ATT wireless is bar none the absolute worst in terms of customer service.
-They flat out lie to you most of the time regarding the contract in the basic T&C and how or if the contract can be changed.
-They give you different answers to the same questions, no one who works there can really give a coherent answer to anything.
-They hide critical details from you like if you make even the slightest change to your contract, even if that change is a correction to a mistake THEY made it will add at least another year to your contract.
-They NEVER NEVER honor insurance on a lost/damaged phone - never. It's straight up theft for them to charge for insurance because there are zero instances where they honor it.
-There is no phone number to call for help first - your only 'option' is email and then a phone number to call. Once you do call, expect to spend at least 2 hours on the phone.
-The bill is utterly impenetrable - no one, not even them can explain what the individual items are. It's entirely possible that there are all sorts of fraudulent charges in the bill.
-The service itself is spotty and horrible - if you like noise and dropouts and an inability to even get a dialtone more than 4 out of 5 attempts then please use ATT.
-Voicemail has NEVER worked correctly - I had to eventually have voicemail turned off because messages could not be retrieved, ever.
ATT should rot in hell and the people who work there need to drown to death in the blood of their own children.
Didn';t you get the memo? Months ago AT&T sent out letters explaining that you can roam onto Cingular, and I believe T-Mobile now because they all have a GSM roaming agreement with each other.
I know for a fact i can use the Cingular network and I have on a few occasions, nothing extra on my bill. Long time AT&T customer because I have no T-Mobile reception at my house.
Any ideas on how this will affect mobile to mobile minutes? I have cingular, will I be able to talk to AT&T Wireless subscribers with my mobile to mobile minutes now?
is: can I use this as terms to cancel my contract? I recently upgraded my plan - which comes with a renewed two year contract.
Gee, I'm glad they told me about that little detail. sheesh.
feh. stuff.
Ok, here are two snippits from the article. Can somebody make sense of them for me?
#1
Plans are already underway to make Rollover Minutes available to you. Please check back on November 10, 2004 for an update. Our goal is to have this feature available to you by this holiday season. To get a plan with Rollover, you will need to change to a Cingular Nation® Plan $39.99 or higher. You will also need to get a new Cingular GSM phone.
#2
Q: What happens to my existing rate plan?
A: Rest assured, you will continue to enjoy the benefits of your current rate plan and features.
Ok, my question is - is it possible to KEEP my at&t plan and get rollover minutes? I don't see how they say I can keep my current rate plan and features when I would have to change plans to get the features they advertise (I would normally have no problem with switching to Cingular...but my att plan has 650 anytime minutes....and I don't think Cingular even offers that).
ALSO - why on earth do I need a new phone to change how they bill me? the PHONE doesn't bill me (and I'm sure if it did, people would have hacked/phreaked them by now to make free calls)
Virginia (Hampton Roads) Suncom as well. I am hoping for good things, though. See, I recently switched to GSM and a cool tiny nokia 3100. Love the phone and battery life, but my signal strength went from decent to almost nil when I am inside my house. I can get better signal upstairs, or if I walk into the kitchen or a few other specific "hot zones". It is maddening. And Suncom customer service is something only Dante could identify with. Clueless and arbitrary, and highly random (based on who you chance to deal with), it is unbelievable.
I hope Cingular is a drastic improvement for us.
-- Don't call me "Sir," I increase entropy for a living!
She's probably right. Each of the mini-cells they use only has so much bandwidth and when all the voice channels are used, the cell dropps any calls that are transferred to it. However, I'm not saying the cellular company shouldn't PLAN for that, they should.
It has nothing to do with your signal and everything to do with how many voice channels they have installed in the cell.
- tom -
Also you may want to try jsut simply turning your wireless phone off while you are at work. That was the phone call will be forwarded to your desk phone on the first or second ring. (since the phone goes right to voicemail when it is turned off)
AWS Employee
I'll read the comments for sure, so my apologies if I'm asking something already asked. But as a current Cingular customer who's about to finish his local state plan, I'm thinking of going to a nationwide plan. Is anyone currently an AT&T or Cingular customer with such a plan? What do you like/don't like about your plan? If you could sign up for a different nationwide plan, which would you choose--and are they really that different?
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Karma whorin' since 1999
How long before Cingular cuts off all its TDMA customers, including prepaid customers? I need to know that because I need to know when I'm going to have to dig deep and buy him a new phone.
BTW: if and when I have to do this, he's moving to T-Mobile too. (on the Prepaid side) After being abused by AT&T when I tried to move from my prepaid TDMA account to a GSM account last year, once bitten, twice shy.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I love this merger if only because finally the single largest wireless carrier in the US is a GSM carrier. After years of GSM being a second citizen in the US wireless market finally it has a real chance at the mainstream.
Say what you want about the technical advatages/diasadvantages of GSM vs CDMA. I know CDMA is technically superior in quality and bandwidth utilization, which is why 3rd generation GSM will be based on CDMA instead of TDMA. But, GSM has two huge advatages:
1) The idea of putting all the customer information, including phonebook, on a smart card was just brilliant. I've shopped for GSM phones in Europe and India and the selection of phones is mind boggling. And to try out a phone you just slip your SIM into the phone and give it a try. Of course, they don't play these locking games outside the US, hopefully Cingular will continue its unlocked policy.
2) GSM phone support real international roaming. My wife once asked a cell phone saleperson about international roaming and was told how her phone would work in Canada. Now international roaming charges are outrageous everywhere in the world, although the US carriers are by far the worse, but still it's nice to be able to use your phone while transiting through one country on the way to the other. When you get to your final destination just pop a pre-paid SIM card into your phone.
T-mobile offers the Nokia 6010, a GSM phone that supports both 850 and 1900 MHz bands.
10Brett-T
Oh, bother.
In Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and San Diego (the only places I've used my T-Mobile GSM phone) connectivity is pretty sweet.
If I have a T-Mobile GSM phone, why do I know about Cingular's network? Because T-Mobile has had colocation rights on Cingular infrastructure on the West Coast since forever, and because I have an unlocked Euro-Phone (Ericsson r520m) the display identifies the actual network I'm on, not the service provider.
The only annoyances are that my apartment is under a dead zone, and at the current place that SFVLUG meets, it's also under a dead zone. I have to take a short walk to get to the next tower to place a call.
You should see some improvement if AT&T starts taking advantage of Cingular's infrastructure. Verizon has a crappy "home" zone for its users (If you call in Santa Barbara and you are an LA user, you get hit with roaming fees) and cuts no deals if you are a Verizon landline customer.
If you want to switch, go T-Mobile. Easily the geekiest mobile company on the planet, with all-you-can-eat GPRS (mobile internet) or all-you-can-eat "Hot Spot" 802.11b service for $20/month ($40/month for both) if you have a mobile phone with them.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I agree 100% - and you're right that they should have planend for it or at least have upgrades planned. When I asked, they said there are no upgrades planned for my area. I wish cell phone companies were like cable providers in the respect that they don't require any contracts. Simply month-month billing.
how is talking on your cell any different than talking to a passenger in the car? You don't pull over in the latter instance, so why would you in the former?
Studies show that passengers subconsciously shut up when they see that you're getting into a tricky driving situation. But unlike a passenger, a caller doesn't unless you ask her to, and unless and until you so ask, the impairment compares to driving at .08% blood alcohol concentration.
This is a genuine question...
In the UK, calls have been getting cheaper and competition between networks is pretty intense. I think it's like this in most of Europe. So where has the US gone wrong?
I saw all the sweet deals on amazon.com on Treo 600's for ATTWireless....I was hesistant b/c I am currently with Cingular and didn't know if this merger would happen, but if I can save $300 through rebates on a Treo 600 and switch to ATTW, then eventually I'd be back on Cingular right???
Seems like a decent way to get a cheap GSM Treo 600, and eventually be back on Cingular.
"An anonymous AT&T Customer Care agent, who is sick of dealing with retards like yourself. Read your fucking Terms of Service, THEN come bitch to us." Makes me want to call AT&T for Customer Care.
- Cingular's coverage was spotty even in Los Angeles;
- Outgoing phone calls got dropped about 40% of the time without so much as an error message;
- Cingular's coverage did not extend north of about San Francisco;
- The last straw was when I went to a wedding in Arcata and everyone else has AT&T phones, which worked perfectly.
Technically, as someone else mentioned, AT&T is relatively problem-free. However, I recently got married, so I added my wife's line to my plan and got new GSM phones. WHAT A FREAKIN' NIGHTMARE! AT&T has separate "departments" for individual administrative operations. That is, they have:- a "Customer Information Department" which could change her name and address but couldn't move her account under mine and forwarded me to the...
- ... "Change of Financial Responsibility Department" which could move her account under mine but couldn't sell me a phone so they sent me to the...
- ... "Sales Department" which couldn't sell me a GSM phone because I hadn't upgraded my account to GSM and forwarded me to the...
- ... "3G Upgrade Department" which upgraded me to "3G" (sales talk for GSM) and sent me back to the
...
- ... "Sales Department" which couldn't sell me a GSM phone because they were the "Wireless Sales Department", not the...
- ... "GSM Sales Department", which DID sell me a phone and to complete the process I was handed to the...
- ... "Customer Service Department", which could do NOTHING for me because they were actually the "Wireless Customer Service Department" and not the...
- ... "GSM Customer Service Department", where I at LONG FREAKIN' LAST completed what should have been ONE TRANSACTION WITH ONE CUSTOMER SERVICE REP.
I therefore heartily agree with the poster who urges Cingular to burn everything associated with AT&T Customer DisService.AT&T has the most agressive developer programs, for data apps and smartphones, of any of the American mobile telcos. When they've divested from their aging network, though they've extended its life with broad(er)band like EDGE, what platform will those apps run on? Or are they going to a network-agnostic development platform, leveraging Java across the various radio systems to offer apps and data services to anyone, regardless of their carrier pigeonhole?
--
make install -not war
Be careful about roaming with Cingular. They bill your anytime minutes even if it's night or on the weekend. Right now AT&T doesn't do this, I hope this doesn't change after the merger.
If I were to open a coffee shop, the first thing I would do is install WiFi and offer it for free, just to help draw customers. I think Starbucks blew it on this one. All any competitor would have to do is offer free WiFi and Starbucks would lose a signficant part of their coffee-on-the-couch crowd.
media girl
A T-Mobile dealer in a shopping mall was offering me the Treo 600 unlocked for $300. When the phones get pricier, or also serve as PDAs, the value of having one unlocked becomes more apparent and many cellular dealers use an unlocked phone to draw you into their service. It's no loss to them, since you still have to sign a contract, which is where they make their money.
media girl
thank you.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
I agree ... the BBB is a joke now.
They take too long to respond. They are often out of the office and usually don't understand or care to understand technical/technological issues.
I had someone from eBay file a false BBB report on me. It took over a year to resolve the issue.
I vowed that when i opened my brick and mortar business that I would not be bullied into membership (which is $495).
It does help to file a report online and at least have a record of complaint.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny