Any Happy AT&T Wireless customers out there?
 

I was a happy ATT wireless customer for years.. Then I got caught up in the Cingular/ATT merger and they forced me from my old ATT Nokia phone into buying a Cingular Motorola phone and it sucked. I tried several models and they all sucked. Then it Katrina happened and I could hardly make a call at all. About 6 months later, I saw a Cingular spokesperson on the news blowing smoke. I knew then that it was the network and not me. I ended up dumping Cingular and even paying hundreds to cancel my contract. It was worth almost any cost to get on Verizon where I have almost no problems here in town. I don't travel much so national coverage doesn't do much for me. I just need too coverage in town. I vote for abolishment of the PSC or PUC (Public Service Commission) because they do absolutely nothing to protect citizens from telecom abuse from major corporations. What a joke.

WHen I was an AT&T customer I never had to call them for anything perfect service not even a billing issue that I can recall. Once cingular took over it all went to hell and back. I switched to Verizon, one due to the shotty service of cingular and 2 they wanted me to pay to switch to CINGULAR??? I didn't tell them to buy at&t and why should I pay to use them when they are my carrier in the first place? They made it so the old at&t phones were unusable and if you could use them they had more issues than you can imagine. I pay for Verizon and it's not cheap but you do get what you pay for sometimes.

I say no to Cingular!!!

Cingular blah
 

I was once a very happy AT&T customer also. Could even get reception in the deepest depths of Wal-Mart. Well, those days are long gone. Cingular is the worst cell provider I have ever dealt with in my life. I have no idea how they keep the lights on. I own a business and if I ran my business like they run their business, I'd be out of business. Cingular recently was called to the carpet by the Shreveport city council and had to answer as to why their service was so bad.

Are you serious ? I would have liked to have heard that conversation !!
But you are correct, if anyone else ran a business like that, they'd be screwed. I got so jerked around having to migrate from AT&T to Cingular, and had to freakin' get new phones to do it. I then went through no FEWER than 8 phones trying to find one that would work. Atop some of the tallest buildings in town, with FULL signal.. calls would still get dropped, or fail to go through.

So was it when the city Council called them out.. is that when I read about the Cingular rep trying to tell us how they were trying to improve service around here or what ? that was some 8 months ago or so ?

What I find funny about Cingular is their TV commercials. While I was on ATT, I didn't even know what "call failed" meant. Cell phone service just wasn't an issue for me for years and years while on ATT. But while on Cingular, all I got was dropped calls and jitter. Half my calls were dropped or unusable.

So their new TV commercials talk about how they were voted the most reliable network with the fewest dropped calls!! This simply amazes me that they can claim that in independent study proves it. Riiiiiiiight..........

I guess their marketing department is sitting around asking, "What is our biggest problems?" (dropped calls) OK, lets spend millions saying we have fewer dropped calls than anyone else! Now when I see a Cingular commecial with a pissed off actor angry over his droppouts, I just pretend he is using Cingular! They got one thing right, and that is simply associating Cingular with dropped calls. That part is Right on!

..
 

Here's the link.... I think there is video wih it.

http://www.ktbs.com/news/local/3904866.html

So it's not just me then.. THOSE @#$@#$@#$@ , saying it's FIXED.

not to mention the NIGHTMARE I went through. and STILL going through, trying to drop my cingular account..

Typical arrogance from Cingular (largely owned by BellSouth) Instead of apologizing for shoddy service, or offering to let their poor customers out of contracts early due to poor level of service, they just reek of arrogance. How dare a city council call their hand! I guess the era of "pilaging" is not yet over, because they have more attorneys lobbying in Washington, than Shreveport has lawyers total!

I thought I would share some of my research on the topic:

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/...GNEWS/60810024
http://www.kpxj21.com/news/local/3904836.html
http://www.cellreception.com/coverag...ort/page1.html

Interesting story:
http://www.my3cents.com/showReview.cgi?id=12495

Yea.. on the phone with Cingular now.. they're still trying to figure out what it is I owe them for a service that never worked.. I switched to Verizon some time ago, but this damn bill with Cingular won't freakin' go away, I'll be glad to pay it, once they can tell me what the heck it's for !!!!

Happy AT&T Customer
 

I am actually a happy AT&T Wireless customer because I never switched to Cingular. I migrated myself and my wife to AT&T's GSM plan shortly before the merger and never made the mistake of switching plans after that, which would have required me to become a "Cingular Orange" customer instead of "Cingular Blue."

I needed a new phone earlier this year so I just ordered it straight from Nokia instead of going through Cingular. It cost me $150 instead of $50 but I still have my precious AT&T Wireless SIM card that lets me use the good network. It was a huge pain to set up the data services, but once I did that I have been very pleased. My wife called me today and I didn't even know she was on a cell phone until she told me.

I can manually choose between the two networks (they used to show up as "CINGULAR" and "Cingular" with the latter being the AT&T service, but now they both show up as being named "CINGULAR") and it's still worlds of difference.

well LUCKY YOU.. yes, when I was an AT&T customer, I NEVER had a problem with my phone. when I went to Cingular, I went through 8 phones.. none of which worked to my satisfaction. even if I had a full signal, I would still get dropped and missed calls.

Just got off the phone with Cingular, seemed like hours.. but they decided I didn't owe them some $1,000 + and dropped the whole thing, said it was in their error. Long story :D

Wish I could go back to the days of AT&T wireless service.

You are pretty smart to keep AT&T. You probably have the whole network to yourself! ;) I needed more phones and caved into the sales pressure to "migrate" over to Cingular. It cost a lot to migrate over, and even more to get the heck of Cingular. (It's borderline fraud if you ask me, but IANAL) But I do consider AT&T's network to be "night and day" difference when compared to Cingular. I thought AT&T was supposed to buy back Cingular? Or is that deal dead?...

Food chain
 

AT&T (the formerly big company) used to own AT&T Wireless. Then they sold the service (but not the ue of the name AT&T) to Cingular, which itself was a joint venture between BellSouth and SBC (formerly SoutWestern Bell).

At this point there was still AT&T, the long distance, networking, etc. company and "AT&T Wireless," owned by Cingular who had to stp using the name AT&T in any form. Then SBC (who owed about half of Cingular) bought AT&T, so you had SBC owning both AT&T and a company that owned the old AT&T Wireless network and customers. SBC decided to change it name to AT&T after the merger. Then AT&T (formerly SBC, formerly SouthWestern bell) decided to buy BellSouth (who owned the other half of Cingular).

So now one company, named AT&T, will own everything: The old SouthWestern Bell, BellSouth, Cingular, AT&T Wireless, and AT&T's long distance/networking/etc. business.

It's all so simple!

Clear as mud :) so does this mean "Cingular" wireless service is going to ever get any better in the Shreveport Bossier area ?

Cingular getting better
 

That I cannot answer. There is no technical reason it cannot, AT&T owns plenty of spectrum and has more than enough tower leases.

The original problem was that while ATTWS and Cingular used the same protocol and frequencies, the tower equipment was different and incompatible. the Cingular tower equipment was actually newer and able to support more people in the same bandwidth (a.k.a. cheaper for the company) which is why Cingular GSM phones defaulted to Cingular towers, even though it may have been getting a better/stronger signal from an ATTWS (which was owned and operated by the same company).

So did that merger actually go through? I didn't know the Bellsouth deal was consumated.

LOL, wow and all that after breaking up the AT&T monopoly into 5 regional bells years ago. I guess what goes around comes around.......

BS/ATT Merger
 

No, the BellSouth/AT&T merger hasn't actually gone through yet, it has only been announced. It has yet to be approved by the FCC, but should any day now.

Also, the original breakup was into 7 RBOCS (or nine, depending on what you consider a breakup). Now there are four, soon to be three.

Many thanks for the clarifications joepole! What I do remember is that AT&T was once Bell Labs who invented the transistor (before I was born) and Western Electric who made the phones.

Bell Labs
 

Yep, Bell Labs was part of AT&T until the breakup, at which point it became part of Western Electric (which changed its name to AT&T Bell Labs or something similar). It also kind of sort of split into Belcore, which provided Bell Labs-like services to the RBOCs, but neither company has been anywhere near as important/influential as Bell Labs was back in the day.

They didn't just invent the transistor there, they invented UNIX (and c), lasers, faxes, and wireless networking, just to name a few things.

By the way, Bell Labs became Western Electric, which became AT&T Bell Labs, which spun off into Lucent, which sucks now and is being bought by Alcatel.

Your telecom knowledge is considerable! We should have drinks! My telco experiences are more "post 1996" but I do love the old lore. Yea it's sad how Lucent spun downhill. Alcatel, has a pretty good name as I recall. I think all the original BellSouth DSLAM's were Alcatel, but I could be wrong. Isn't Alcatel a UK company?

You must work for a wireless company or Centurytel, or Bellsouth or something. ;)

Alert Alert
 

Telco Geek Alert !


LOL


My brother worked for AT&T Research & Development for years.. does that count :)

As a child, I went on a field trip to Western Electric on Mansfield road. The plant was huge, and even had it's own cafeteria. All I remember is that the spokesperson said that there was enough concrete in the slab to pave a sidewalk from Shreveport to Baton Rouge. Now that's a lot of concrete! What is the old plant now? Anyone know?

Alcatel and AT&T site
 

Alcatel is a French company.

The old Western Electric/AT&T plant on Mansfield Road became Lucent technologies then (I think) something else unlrelated to AT&T, but nothing that ever used the full potential of the site.

It's available if you'd like to rent or buy it.

Top 5 uses for the old Western Electric plant:

5. Worlds largest self storage
4. Worlds largest indoor amusement park
3. World's largest indoor bass fishing pond
2. World's largest indoor zoo

And the number 1 use fo the old Western Electric plant:

1. Cell phone factory
(wouldn't that be something)

A Related Question?
 

I saw your thread and just had to ask, you mention AT&T, what about T-Mobile or Cigular?

The reason I ask is that we have tried both. Cigular's service was great, but we could not get a phone from them that worked. We ended up spending the last six months of our contract with defective phones before we gave up on them.

Our experience with T-Moble was even worse. Our phones apparently worked, but we seemed unable to receive hardly any incoming calls. Frequently outgoing calls were a problem and we were often blocked from using our phone with connection problems and error messages. We even went so far as to have some friends and family members stand next to us to try calling our phone (our phone fully charged, on, and in hand) and we could not get any calls from them. Their phone received messages that the number they tried to reach (us) was busy, server not available, and a host of other similar messages. We have since quit paying for our non-existant T-mobile service, quit using their phones, and refer other potential T-moble customers to other phone companies. We were just wondering if there were very many other similar stories out there. Thank you.

Verizon is the only way to go!! I switched to them 1.5 yrs ago and have nothing negative to say except $$$ but I guess the old saying goes, you get what you pay for? For this cell phone provider its totally true. I have 3 phones sharing 2000 min/month and pay 160.00

Believe you me.. went through 8 phones with Cingular. NONE OF THEM worked to my satisfaction. dropped calls, missed calls.. no signal etc etc etc etc.. lousy service over the phone. only other I tried when I bailed on Cingular was to go with Verizon, and I've been very happy with the "service" although they do cripple their phones somewhat.. compared to say cingular.. but I just needed a darn phone that would work, and Verizon has provided that. and yes they are more expensive than Cingular.

Tom, here is my take on this. If you are in Shreveport, your Cingular problems are not the phones but network related. It wouldn't matter how many phones you tried. I know one person who tried almost half a dozen phones with the same bad results. As for T-mobile, they are a MNVO (Multi Network Vendor Operator). That is, they do not own their own network but rather use Cingular's!! ;)

The one gripe I have with Verizon is that I can't just buy any ringtone I like I have to use "their" service through the phone. But honestly if that's the only issue I have compared to using Cingular I'm doing good. The gripes I have seen out there with Cingular are unbelievable and I am really surprised how many people just put up with the problems. I paid to get out of the contract due to just hating them. Not everyone I guess can pay to get out of it. They are scammers and in the end they will loose and Verizon will win.

I have complained to verizon about cingular having roll over minutes and they don't. I am told that they will not offer it and basically you get what you pay for attitude so they know how much people hate cingular so it may never happen.

Amen sister!!!

Exactly, but it is worth the "bones" to get my life back! Cingular was holding my life hostage! I don't mean to be dramatic, but this is how I feel. I paid $600 to get off Cingular and onto Verizon, and worth every penny. I have 3 Cingular phones for sale BTW if anyone wants them. One RAZR and Two Vsomethings....

yes I heard that the phone (RAZR for example) supports custom ringtones, but Verizon had Moto disable it in the OS and only allow Verizon's ringtone$......

My cingular phones went into the garbage!!! It wasn't even worth listing on ebay.

Yeah there is no way around it. They have pretty good tones I just don't like not having the option to buy where I want and pay how much I want. I pay like 10.00 for 5 ringtones? I don't know I paid for it a few months ago out of desperation. I have the pink Razr and it really is nice but sucks in Target. If you have a phone w/ a built in antenna, DONT GO TO TARGET!!! Their walls are very thick.

right.. with Cingular , I didn't have to BUY ANY ringtones.. using Bluetooth, I would just copy over a few .mp3s to us for ringtones.. very cool. But I gave all that up for a damn phone that works and went with Verizon as well.. the crippled phones bother me too.. but the darn phone has to work first and foremost.

Rough Rider

Ringtones
 

I pay $0 for ringtones because custom ringtones are one of the most annoying things in the universe. We have a guy in our office whose phone plays some damn song and every time it rings I want to hurl it against the wall.

Today I get a call from a customer. It was about 50% audible. Automatically I asked "Are you on your cell phone?" He said yes. I said "Do you use Cingular?" He said (knowingly) yes. Not surprised, I asked him to call me back on his landline so we could do business. No problem after that.

I just saw a cingular commercial which prompted me to post this. Cingular not only sucks, but they also practice false advertising in my opinion. Even more, they advertise their problems as if they were their strengths. Now that is messed up.

amazing how AT&T wireless had something so good, as far as a network in this town, and then Cingular rode into the ground.

TDMA Network
 

That good AT&T network still exists, you just can't use it. If you have an old TDMA account left over from AT&T Wireless it works great. You pay about five times as much as everybody else for phone service, though.