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Wireless Networking Businesses The Almighty Buck Hardware

Cingular Wins bid for AT&T Wireless 359

Posted by CmdrTaco from the game-of-consolidation dept.
Newer Guy writes "Cingular has won the bidding war for AT&T Wireless with an offer of $15 a share, or about $40.5 billion." This means Vodafone is out, and the number of competitors for wireless devices in the US is down by one.
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Cingular Wins bid for AT&T Wireless More

Cingular Wins bid for AT&T Wireless

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  • It also means... (Score:4, Funny)

    by negacao ( 522115 ) * <dfgdsfg@asdasdasd.net> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:08AM (#8303691)
    that I'm canceling my AT&T wireless phone as of today.

    • Re:It also means... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by badfrog ( 45310 )
      Damn, I'm stuck with my current contract for another 3 months. I knew I shouldn't have upgraded my phone last year!
    • You got it...time to pay this last bill and get out of Dodge!
      Just when I though AT&T Wireless couldn't get any worse

    • Amen! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by nahdude812 ( 88157 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:53AM (#8303972) Homepage
      I switched from Cingular to Verizon some months back, and pay MORE for the "same service" under Verizon. Except I'm getting tons more service, the dead spots are almost non existant, and when they are, it's usually only for the span of 100 yards or so, not miles like Cingular.

      Also, Cingular screwed up my billing on almost a monthly basis. They kept claiming that I was delinquent on my payments, only my payments go out automatically 5 days in advance (I never incurred extra charges, so it was a flat fee every month). I know they got the payments on time, but they'd feed me the "You have to allow us 5 business days to process your payment" BS. My bill is paid the day you receive the check, not the day you get around to telling your computer system that it's paid. Heck, they cash the checks before they enter them in to their system, all of my checks were cashed 1-2 days before the due date, but they still told me I was delinquent.

      I'd call every month, and every month, they'd take off the late fees when I complained about it, but do you know how old this gets? Every single month calling them to get them to correct their errors. I switched off of them and evaluated AT&T and Verizon as potential new service providers, and decided on Verizon only because of the glowing testimony given by a coworker, who also lent me his phone for a day so I could check to see if those dead spots (eg, my house and my work) in Cingular's network were there for Verizon, when they were non existant under Verizon.

      If I had switched instead to AT&T, I'd be canceling my service right away even if it meant I had to suck down the early termination fee.
      • Back in the old days (like 5 years ago) whatever little company Cingular gobbled up in my area was like 10x worse than Cingular.

        Apparently rural areas were run by francised tower operators who frequently billed Cingular late or quarterly or something...

        So you'd drive into an affected rural area and use the phone for a couple of emergency calls (remember this is expensive roaming in those days)... then you wouldn't get a bill!

        Strange, eh?

        Well what would end up happening is that you would get billed for l

      • Re:Amen! (Score:5, Informative)

        by nolife ( 233813 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @09:32AM (#8304296) Homepage Journal
        Watch that billing with Verizon also! I pay my Verizon home service through an ebill with Checkfree. I can not simply select "pay bill" for it to be sent automatically, I have to subtract at least 2 business days because they were doing the same delay thing and charging late fees. Funny thing, I called to Verizon to inquire about the delay, they stated they have to hold on to a check for "3 to 5 days" before actually crediting the account. I explained it was an electronic payment through Checkfree, she claimed it was paid with physical check but could not give me the check number because of technical problems (I know why, because a check number did not exist). I know sometimes physical checks are sent out by Checkfree but my Verizon payment is all electronic but for some reason, still delayed.

        • You think that's bad? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Rich0 ( 548339 )
          I have my phone, long distance, DSL, and wireless with Verizon (that's one big bill).

          For a while every time I sent them a payment they'd send me a check back for the same amount a couple of weeks later, along with a delinquient bill. Apparently they were crediting my payments to an old closed-out account I used to have a few months prior (funny - they accepted the first few payments just fine). They DID NOT return MY check (as if it had bounced or something) - they cashed my check and wrote me back a che

      • Re:Amen! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by sphealey ( 2855 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @09:55AM (#8304506)
        I'd call every month, and every month, they'd take off the late fees when I complained about it, but do you know how old this gets? Every single month calling them to get them to correct their errors. I switched off of them and evaluated AT&T and Verizon as potential new service providers, and decided on Verizon only because of the glowing testimony given by a coworker, who also lent me his phone for a day so I could check to see if those dead spots (eg, my house and my work) in Cingular's network were there for Verizon, when they were non existant under Verizon.
        I am happy for you, but my experience with Verizon was just the opposite. I got in a 3-month battle with them over dead spots in one of St. Louis' largest suburbs (average income, average density, average or above average cell phone usage). They WOULD NOT acknowledge that there was a problem (blaming everything from the instrument {which worked fine elsewhere} to sunspots), WOULD NOT send out a signal-strength truck ("What's that sir? We don't have those"), and WOULD lose the trouble ticket every day or two.

        I had to threaten to file a formal complaint with the state commerce commission and FCC (funny how ears suddenly perk up when they realize you know the difference between a gripe letter and a formal complaint) to get them to cancel the contract with no fees.

        I switched back to AT&T and have been using them ever since. No problems connecting anywhere in North America, including some places I really don't expect to get a signal.

        sph

    • Re:It also means... (Score:3, Informative)

      by bhtooefr ( 649901 )
      We cancelled ours already, without knowing. We were screwed by AT&T's coverage maps being EXTREMELY inaccurate and their salespeople lying, but we got out in time to switch to Sprint.

  • Even if Vodafone had won the bid... (Score:5, Informative)

    by foxtrot ( 14140 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:09AM (#8303695)
    the number of competitors would still be reduced by one. Vodafone is a major player in Verizon Wireless.

  • Another one bites the dust (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:10AM (#8303704) Homepage Journal
    Less carriers means less competition means higher prices.

    In the end, it's the consumers who will lose out with this consolidation of mobile providers.

    • Re:Another one bites the dust (Score:4, Interesting)

      by leerpm ( 570963 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:14AM (#8303737)
      Not always. Sometimes when a weaker competitor leaves the market, it makes the existing competitor's stronger, and sometimes you get aggressive price wards. But most of the time it does mean higher prices. We'll just have to wait and see how this one pans out.

    • Re:Another one bites the dust (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Shivaji Maharaj ( 692442 ) <shivajimaharaj@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:16AM (#8303758) Homepage
      Not in the US. If you look at the coverage maps of each provider you will understand the benefits of this deal. A combined map of Cingular and AT & T will provide a larger coverage area for all (new) cingular customers.

      Also, with the new Cingular Nation plan - you roam all the available GSM network through out the US with 0 ( zero ) roaming charges. And not to mention the choice of handsets I get. I think this deal will benefit the customer more than it harms.

      • Re:Another one bites the dust (Score:4, Interesting)

        by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:43AM (#8303900)
        this would certainly be nice... On a trip to IL from MN in August I found that the roaming charges were just absolutely astronomical.

        Perhaps they will also fix the horrible AT&T CSR attitudes and their insistance on hanging up on you when they don't feel like helping.

        Or, maybe not.


    • vodafone is already the most expensive here (uk) and we have 4-5 carriers
    • That's not necessarily true. Less competition means carriers can now think about investing in their networks instead of trying to win customers with their existing networks. The combined Cingular/ATT customer base would give them a good revenue stream and after the merger, they would only need to invest X*1.5$ in their networks instead of X$(for cingular) and X$(for ATT).
    • Less carriers means less competition means higher prices.

      In the end, it's the consumers who will lose out with this consolidation of mobile providers.

      Not necessarily. Around here (south east new england) AT&T wireless sucks. Their service is crappy, they have more dead spots, and they charge more and give you less. Of the 5 people I know who switched to them, 4 switched back to someone else after 3 months. Also, I'm a cingular customer. Currently, I'm on one of the old Cingular Nation plans (no

  • lets just wait until (Score:4, Insightful)

    by caston ( 711568 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:10AM (#8303707)
    802.16e shows it's beautiful face. When people can talk, exchange data, surf the web from anywhere for either free or cheap then it will be a very great day and society will change a great deal.

  • Consolidation Good (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:10AM (#8303709)
    The mobile phone industry is one industry that could actually benefit from consolidation. Running redundant networks with redundant cell towers is very expensive. 3-4 major players should provide enough competition to keep prices down.

  • AT&T... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Infernon ( 460398 ) * <infernon AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:12AM (#8303728)
    I've been a customer of AT&T Wireless for about five years. Up until about a year ago, I never had a complaint about them and thought that they were a pretty tight service.
    Then I moved and they renewed my contract without telling me. I didn't know until the end of the year when I called to renew and get a deal and found out that I wasn't up for renewal for another five months.
    Over the course of the past year, my bill has been incorrect on three different occasions, two of them, I just paid because I had absolutely no desire to deal with the customer service team. Long hold tiimes, RUUUUUUDE people and some of the worst double-talk about their policies.
    I just thought it was interesting how they started to go down the tubes and now this. I'm not saying that one less competitor is a good thing, but AT&T wireless customers really don't have anything to lose here. It can't get much worse...

    • Re:AT&T... (Score:3, Informative)

      by nojomofo ( 123944 )
      Well, they can't "renew" a contract for you. A contract is a binding agreement between two parties. If you had a contract for 2 years, then it's for 2 years. They can't assign you a new contract without your approval. I bet you could have gotten out of that "contract".

    • Re:AT&T... (Score:3, Funny)

      by Enry ( 630 )
      Oh good, so you'll be used to Cingular then.

    • Re:AT&T... (Score:4, Informative)

      by ThogScully ( 589935 ) <neilsd@neilschelly.com> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:51AM (#8303947) Homepage
      I'd run, if I were you. I finally got my fiance out of Cingular's grasp after her seemingly endless contract stopped getting renewed and added her to my TMobile plan. The prices are great and TMobile is awesome for customer service (at least they have been for me for several years back into the Voicestream years).

      As someone else has said, it can get much worse.
      -N

    • Re:AT&T... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) *
      I agree w/you completely.. What I want to know is if I can now drop my service and get out of my contract (as they have broken the terms because they are no longer AT&T).

      I want to switch to T-mobile for the data service and better Twin Cities coverage.
      • I would like to know the same thing, because there is nothing more I would love than to get out of my ATT contract before November.

        However, I am assuming that this merger will take longer to complete than any existing contracts that are out there now. And if not, there is probably some legalese in there that transfers existing contracts over, as long as they don't screw around with the features/prices you agreed to.

        Of course, IANAL.

    • Re:AT&T... (Score:3, Informative)

      by lpret ( 570480 )
      I completely agree. There are times I simply don't bother sitting on hold for 3 hours (as I have done more than once!) to contest a 15 dollar issue. I hate their contracts and everything about them, but -- I got a really tight handset and their service in my town is the best of all the providers (except Cingular, and now it doesn't matter!). Hopefully their customer service will improve a little. Maybe...

    • Re:AT&T... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nolife ( 233813 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @09:47AM (#8304438) Homepage Journal
      You have just described the entire US cellular industry. Scope out the cellular newsgroups and you will find the same exact complaints stated almost daily about EVERY carrier.

    • Re:AT&T... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by smithja ( 210624 )
      I've actually been a completely satisfied ATT wireless customer since they hit the market - and an Ameritech cellular customer before that. On the other hand, my girlfriend has been a Cingular customer for just as long. For her ~$50/month she gets awful customer service, a shit handset that barely ever has over two bars of signal, spotty network coverage at best, and dropped calls out the arse.

      I'm *really* not looking forward to this. All i can do is hope that the ATT side takes over the call centers.

      T

  • At least it's GSM... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:14AM (#8303735) Homepage Journal
    albeit at frequencies incompatible with most of the rest of the world.

    • Re:At least it's GSM... (Score:5, Informative)

      by ian13550 ( 697991 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:51AM (#8303946)
      Well, if you get a tri-band "world" GSM phone it works in 90% of the rest of the world where there is GSM coverage. My SE T68i worked all over Australia and Europe when I traveled there AND everywhere ATTWS has coverage (or roaming agreements) in the USA (which was getting larger and larger each month). Seems like it was compatible "with most of the rest of the world" to me...
      • I'll second that... Getting a phone that supports multiple frequencies is best as it sends a message to the phone makers that this kind of portability is important. Personally, I know it has been valuable and while I'm sure not everyone will use it, it's very nice to know it's there and it's always good to support the best standard.
        -N
    • Allow me to elaborate. The feature set on most US tri-band phones are behind those of the rest of the world. Why? Market share. Sell them in Asia-Pac and Europe by the truckload and then do a US design when and if time permits.

      Approximately 450 million handsets were sold last year. How many were GSM handsets sold in the US?

      'nuff said

  • Verizon's response. (Score:5, Funny)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) * <mark&seventhcycle,net> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:14AM (#8303744) Homepage
    Can you hear me now...
    (wait for it)
    (wait for it)
    NO CARRIER.

    SHIT!

  • I'm a current Cingular customer (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    And I have to say that they've been nothing but courteous and respectful on the phone with me. They've even taken off $200+ long distance fees, and given me some extra perks(Free 2mb internet downloads/month).

  • Cingular (Score:4, Funny)

    by illuminata ( 668963 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:18AM (#8303768) Journal
    It's the "I can tell Vodaphone to swallow my balls now" plan.

  • Now what? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NETHED ( 258016 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:22AM (#8303788) Homepage
    What happens to the regional AT&T Networks? In the South East, there is a company owned by Triton Communications called SunCom, and they PROUDLY state, everywhere that they are part of the AT&T network. Website [suncom.com] Just look at their logo! I wonder what this means for companies like them? Will AT&T Wirless be mirged out of existence?

  • ..

    A lot of relieved Vodafone investors then -- or potential investors for that matter -- who it seems didn't have much confidence in the ATT buyout.

    Now, next try for Vodaphone: Vivendi [forbes.com].

  • why... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ZoneGray ( 168419 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:23AM (#8303792) Homepage
    Why gripe about a reduction in the number of wireless providers, when the last mile of copper is still a legal monopoly?

    Every wonder why wireless phone service is becoming cheaper than wired? Ever wonder why your wired service is a few decades behind in technology?

    Ever wonder why you can get a broadband cell phone set up immediately, but you often have to wait a month for DSL installation?

    Say what you want about the wireless market, it will soon offer better services at cheaper prices than wire. And the difference isn't technology, it's regulation.... it's the legislated monopoly that claims to protect consumers. But nowadays, poor folks who talk a lot are using wireless phones, because it's cheaper.

  • Competition (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zazas_mmmm ( 585262 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:23AM (#8303800)
    and the number of competitors for wireless devices in the US is down by one.

    Is it inherently a bad thing to have one less competitor? Isn't competition supposed to only be the path towards customer satisfaction? In the world of wireless, where the end is good coverage, an excellent infrastructure, and flexible plans, as long as competition fosters these things it's good to have one more carrier in the fray. However, AT&T has arguably the worst network and worst coverage of any provider. Having them swallowed into a much larger network with much broader coverage is not inherently a bad thing.

    This is not to debate the merits of Cingular's network or to compare their coverage or plans with Verizon, T-mobile, or Sprint's--this is simply to say that beleagured AT&T customers serve to gain from the acquisition.

    • Competition - rule of three (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Inflatable Hippo ( 202606 ) <`ku.oc.oohay' `ta' `oppih_elbatalfni'> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:44AM (#8303904) Journal
      I have heard various "learned" sources state that there is little point in having more than 3 serious competitors in any market.

      Fishing around on the web for a synopsis of this theory, I came across this:

      "So why three? The authors contend that markets are inherently efficient, and three competitors is the best number to promote and sustain that efficiency. Having two companies will lead either to monopoly pricing or to the two destroying each other, and more than three leads to overcapacity and perpetual price wars.

      Thus, when faced with three established competitors in a field, you want to think long and hard about whether you're willing to spend the money to knock one of them off. Consider instead becoming a product specialist ("We make the world's best X") or a niche player ("We only serve the Y market"). Trying to force your way in either by taking on a market leader directly or by expanding outside of your niche just doesn't seem to be a wise use of resources, according to the research."

      The source of this article can be found here:
      http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,3959,4 7255,00 .asp

  • might not be such a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by johnjosephbachir ( 626223 ) <j@jjOPENBSDb.cc minus bsd> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:29AM (#8303831) Homepage
    Creeping toward monopoly, or only a (smaller) handful of key players in the mobile phone market might not be so bad in terms of quality of service. For some markets consumers benefit from conglomeration of resources. Think about long distance service. There are 3 major players and a handful of tiny players. I don't feel particularly ripped off on my long distance service. If there were 45 different long distance companies, then they would all be charging each other fees to go from network to network, there would be incompatibility problems which would cause decreased quality and also slower adaptation of new technology.

    Don't get me wrong, the reason it's like this is because the government doesn't step in and regulate the industry as much as it "should". If we were magically fully utilizing all of the state of the art fiber optic line that we had in the ground and it was all seamlessly available on the free market for any provider to rent at a standardized price, then having 100 bandwidth/long-distance companies would indeed be a good thing for consumers.

    But like the wording of my example might suggest, I don't think it would be possible for the technology to stay state of the art AND fully regulated at the physical layer even if the government wanted to. Governments are (reasonably...) good at taking something economically tangible, like value-units of food or healthcare, and distributing it pretty much fairly (not that they always do this, but if they do then they are capable of succeeding).

    But even if the US government regulated the network, and had a board of domain experts constantly auditing the state of the system, the fact of the matter is they would not have the motivation to maintain a state of the art network to support bandwidth and voice. Greedy corporations are good for that.

    And 100 greedy corporations would never be able to interoperate and also provide state of the art and fairly priced services.

    Lawrence Lessig, are you reading this? Set me straight!! :-)

  • Hurray! Guess who's picking up the bill? (Score:5, Informative)

    by OlivierB ( 709839 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:31AM (#8303846)
    You Now what, customers are gonna pick up the bill. That's right. Here in Europe everybody got frenzy when the governments put teh 3G licenses on auction. Well all our operators forked out Billion$. How are they paying for it? Well we are! Altough there are ever more susbcribers to their service prices have not come down. Forget about the whole economies of scale and inversed moores law for telecommunication prices. We have kept a steady Price tag. Every time we text we have to pay roughly 20 Us cents for a 160 caracter SMS! Beter yet whenever we travel abroad (to another EU country) we end up paying calls for about 1.2$ per minute. That's for inbound calls too. I'm sick of it and have decided to ease off on my phone. Email is massively back in my live. Welcome to the club America

    • Roaming "charges" (Score:3, Interesting)

      by zoney_ie ( 740061 )
      > Beter yet whenever we travel abroad (to another EU country) we end up paying calls for about 1.2$ per minute.

      I really hope that the European Commission cracks down on the operators over this. They need to get their act together. The whole mobile roaming thing is a serious impediment to the principle of freedom of movement in the E.U. In fact, I suspect that because of this it's only a matter of time before they do force the operators' hands.

      I mean for crying out loud, I have to roam even whilst trave

  • obligatory posts (Score:4, Funny)

    by davejenkins ( 99111 ) <slashdot@davejenki[ ]com ['ns.' in gap]> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:37AM (#8303868) Homepage
    Let`s just get these out of the way now...

    "I for one welcome our new Singular overlords!"

    "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Netwerk!"

    and wait for it...

    "All your network are belong belong to us!"

  • Hope Cingular knows what they are getting... (Score:5, Informative)

    by idiot900 ( 166952 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:39AM (#8303878)
    I tried to buy a phone and service from AT&T Wireless last November, only to find that their store literally was incapable of selling me one because "their computers were down." This was the case for days. I've seen postings online by their employees detailing what a mess their internal systems are. Hopefully Cingular knows what they are getting into in terms of merging their operations.

    Also it's important to remember here that AT&T Wireless hasn't been a part of AT&T proper since 2001. They are a separate company with rights to the name and logo.
  • I thought AT&T Wireless was in the wireless operator segment, not in the wireless hardware? I don't mean it as a cliche, but here in Europe the two are separate. Sure I may buy a phone from my operator, often for a good price (if together with a long-time plan), but personally, I haven't done so yet and I've had different phones and different operators. Interoperable, btw.

    Also, here we used to have two wireless operators, and the competition really only showed when the third started. On the other hand

  • Perhaps this means that all of those AT&T Wireless customers (I was one - no longer am) will now get better service, both customer service and carrier service. Billing problems aside, trying to get ahold of the person in the current AT&T Customer Service to deal with a problem with either your phone or your bill is ridiculous. The Cingular people will likely do a MUCH better job than the behemoth that is AT&T. As far as coverage, AT&T coverage was great when I had it, but it was definitel

  • It's Ma Bell all over again. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mgs1000 ( 583340 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:53AM (#8303982) Journal
    Is SBC just determined to piece together what the courts broke up twenty years ago?

  • Good news for Apple partnership? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by adzoox ( 615327 ) * on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @08:58AM (#8304029) Journal
    At MacWorld Expo 2003 The Sony President and Cingular CEO appeared on the stage talking about the wonders of iSync and bluetooth. I think Apple has been sort of waiting for a clear partner for phone service/co branded phone. This might help. I think Apple partnering with Sony/Cingular is a good idea. Currently (at least in my area) AT&T and Cingular are the only ones that offer Sony Ericsson phones = most compatible with bluetooth programs like Romeo and Salling Clicker.

  • How will this affect Rogers AT&T I wonder? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CokoBWare ( 584686 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @09:02AM (#8304056)
    I'd like to know if Rogers AT&T Wireless will see any benefits from this purchase... We need better rates and better service in Canada. Maybe this union will trickle down *shrug*

  • Oh come on... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Junta ( 36770 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @09:02AM (#8304059)
    I know from all of the Cingular commercials I hear that Cingular is a small little company against the big behemoths, right? They aren't some big, huge wireless provider, the commercials say they are like a little adept startup. Commercials wouldn't lie would they?

  • its a good thing.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The Lynxpro ( 657990 ) <lynxpro@ g m a i l . com> on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @09:06AM (#8304092)

    Its a good thing I only opted for a one-year contract with AT&T Wireless when I switched from Cingular back in November. There is no way I'll resubscribe this year with the merged entity unless the FCC forces SBC to spin off Cingular (doubtful). I do not want to be forced into signing up for a residential landline with SBC just as they do with DSL. My rule of thumb is I do not do any business with SBC and I don't intend to break this now. I don't reward shoddy service providers like SBC.

  • I wonder if an area like Athens GA that limits the number of wireless contractors (through oligopoly franchises like cable companies) will allow Cingular in. T-Mobile and AT&T are currently there. I roam to T-Mobile whenever I'm there. It's only 70 miles away. It stinks to have to roam eventhough it's covered in my plan.

    I also wonder if the AT&T towers can be used with the SIM card service that Cingular has - I like this form of phone because you don't have to authorize a phone at a dealer, just st

    • AFAIK the SIM card is a proprietary feature of the GSM cellular transmission method. T-Mobile and Cingular are American GSM carriers. Then you have CDMA carriers like VerizonWireless and Sprint PCS. As for AT&T Wireless I thought that they were still operating on the TDMA cellular transmission method. If so, then the SIM card wouldn't be an option.
      • Suncom (as most AT&T networks) is GSM - there are some networks within both Cingular and AT&T that are NOT GSM. I believe the Florida market (around Jacksonville) has a non SIM card TDMA Cingular network - I think areas of Tennessee may have the same for Cingular.

  • Can you say more layoffs? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @09:21AM (#8304200)
    I turned down a job with those ATTWS clowns back in Feb. It just didn't feel right.

    The worst part? As I interviewed numerous architects and asked the question "What do you worry about most?" EVERYONE said "more layoffs".

    Those were mainly sr. contributors with 7+ years experience in the company. Normally, I'd expect concerns about not meeting schedule, etc.

    Also amusing was that nobody knew (including the managers) who 'owned' system performance. These clowns had tens of millions of HP servers running customer service and they didn't even have a performance manager, strategy, etc.

    And then they wondered why the system collapsed during the number portability fiasco.

    Good luck to everyone at ATTWS.

    Oh yeah.. They were also cheap bastards. The funny thing.. During the week of the interview I was staying in a $2M condo at Whistler that was owned by a VP at ATTWS.. I can assure you that those guys are doing Just Fine no matter how much they pressure their 'lackies'.

  • FYI (Score:5, Informative)

    by nial-in-a-box ( 588883 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @09:43AM (#8304412) Homepage
    If you have AT&T Wireless, get out NOW. Cingular has the most awful, broken billing system ever. They will shut down your account if your bill is one day late and charge you an activation fee to turn it back on. Their highest national plan still does not give you anywhere near unlimited national service. Not to mention it takes them about a day to get a phone activated right. Unfortunately, AT&T Wireless, one of the better (but still not good compared to what Asia has) wireless providers will most likely cease to exist as we know it. This can be a really good thing for Cingular, as they were the most logical buyer, but they will likely botch this. I have AT&T Wireless; as soon as I saw they were up for sale I started looking for another provider and am now in the switch process. Good luck.

  • This can't be all bad. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Thranduil ( 23392 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @10:34AM (#8304880)
    If it reduces the number of kiosks at the mall trying to give me four free phones, I'm all for it.

  • Cingular is bad news (Score:3, Informative)

    by serith ( 658009 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @10:40AM (#8304943) Homepage
    Nearly two years ago I was with Cingular. Roughly half way into my one year contract with them, my nokia phone, "died" (for lack of a better term). I really never cared becuase I had two phones on the plan, the other being an Erikson model. Roughly two months after this incident, my erikson model "died" (the other end could not hear me when i called out on the phone). So, I traveled down to my nearest cingular office (not one of those small, teenage staffed joints), but one of their corporate offices here in central new york. I informed a representitive of what had happened, and as politely as possible she informed me that there was nothing she could do for me, and I would have to continue paying my phone bill for the last 3 months of my contract (for phones that no longer work). I then reluctantly asked if i could pay a penalty fee and switch phones, or exchange the non working ones for at least one new phone that would work. The representivie informed me that I was not allowed to do this until my contract expired. Well, to sum up what happened, I still owe three months of service to Cingular, but like hell will they ever see one penny from me. They did not provide me with a service for my remaining three months, considering I was never able to use it. Cingluar is bad news. I'm now with Cricket Wireless (yeah i know.. not the best choice.. but the coverage on my phone suits me everywhere I venture, and unlimited service for $29.99/month is'nt bad.) I will never go back to Cingular, ever.

  • What IS left of AT&T now? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by zapp ( 201236 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @11:09AM (#8305239)
    AT&T sold off their cable TV and cable Internet to Comcast. Now they sold off their Wireless branch to Cingular. What do they have left, long distance plans?

    Why would they leave themselves with only the things from the past that are likely to die out eventually, and ditch the new technologies?
    • One word: broadband.



      AT&T has the absolute best backbone and amazing service for businesses. I have an AT&T T-1. It wasn't much more than going through Qwest or a local wholesaler, but they have the best SLA out there (one day credits for 15 minutes of downtime, 65ms latency throughout north america and something like 120ms throughout the world). When Verizon accidentally disconnected my local loop, AT&T was on the phone to me within 5 minutes of the circuit dropping.

  • Coverage complaints (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Shant3030 ( 414048 ) * on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @11:15AM (#8305297)
    All posters that complain about coverage:

    Your complaints are meaningless unless you specify the area in which you live. Saying "my coverage sucks" is uninformative and holds no weight.

    I live in the metro NY area and my AT&T connection is average. Compared to the Sprint coverage, it seems to better, but my friends and family prefer Verizon and/or T-Mobile over both.

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