What happened to Cingular?

[Bird]

I guess I just haven't been far enough from the big city in awhile. We got our cell phone in 1999 and it was then Southwestern Bell Mobile, which became Cingular, and we found places that reception was poor; sometimes even non-existent. But it gradually improved to where we haven't found anywhere it wouldn't work just fine in the last 5 years. But it's been a couple of years now since we went out of state more than a hundred miles from home.

 

[milkman]

Bird, I've been really happy with Cingular up till the end of June, then something happened, and not just to my phone, several people I know around here have had the same thing happen to their service. I was on roads today that formerly had full signal before, and now there is no signal at all on three mile stretch of that road, and spotty service for the 22 miles from my house to town. I will get online tomorrow and leave them some indication of my dissatisfaction, only thing I have no other alternative, Sprint is dead here and Verizon is not much better than Sprint.

 

[dgl24087]

I switched from Sprint to US Cellular almost 3 years ago, rarely ever lose signal. Proof that bigger isn't always better in corporate mergers.

 

[txdon]

I did not notice the difference until I got a new phone from AT&T. My reception now is not as good. But I now have games I do not play and take really bad pictures and can get downloads I would not use.


I don't even use the text messaging.

But at least I can look at an older 20 dollar bill and not think it's counterfeit as the young checker at the grocery did yesterday.

 

[Bird]

I don't even use the text messaging

I, too, have no use for text messaging, but last month there was a 15 cent charge for a "received" text message. I don't even remember exactly what the message was, but it was sales pitch/commercial from someone. Now 15 cents isn't much, but who knows how many there might be in the future, so I called AT&T and had them block all text messaging from my account.

 

[George2615]

It seems to be the same problem all over since AT&T took over Cingular. I've been a customer since 2000. My first phone was the old Motorola 5 watt bag phone. I have had many others since. Many people here in Upstate NY have had more dropped calls and lower signal strength since AT&T took over. AT&T says they made no changes so why do so many people all over have the same problem. I think someone isn't being truthful with us. I do have a lower signal and an occassional dropped call at home that I never noticed before.
At work I don't have to worry since I have 5 cell sites on the roof. I don't use it in the car since they made that illegal here unless its handsfree. If I need to make a call from the car or truck there is a hands free phone built in (GM product) to use. Very rare do I not have a signal since I have an AT&T phone (personal), A Nextel phone (for work) and Verizon phone in the vehicle. At least one has a signal where I go. And no I'm not rich having three cells. I have my personal AT&T cell for emergencies, The Nextel is for work and they don't want it used for personal calls, and they Verizon phone came with the vehicle.
I'll have to do what Bird did and call AT&T to block text messages since I have no use for that function and noticed it on my last couple of bills also.

 

[Spiveyman]

Hey Milkman, what part of KY are you from? I'm having the EXACT same problems as you are. I got my Cingular/Razor deal in Feb and it's been awesome anywhere near Lexington, and even worked great out on the back of my farm in Richmond... until a few weeks ago. Dropped calls, bad reception. I thought maybe they were rebelling against NASCAR or something for not letting the 31 don the new AT&T logo, but they allowed it Saturday and I'm still having problems with my phone, so I guess the conspiracy theory is out.

 

[milkman]

If you draw a straight line from Lou. to Owensboro, I'm smack dab in the middle of the two. I got on the Cingular-AT&T site and tried their CONTACT link to let them know what I think about their service over the last two months, and they have a list of topics to choose from, then subcategories to select, it was like answering questions to a survey, couldn't find a place to let them know what's really going on. If I can find 45 minutes where I won't get interrupted, I'll get in line on hold and listen to some music.