Cingular in NYC on July 1

I've been thinking about switching from AT&T and spoke to a Cingular salesguy who told me Cingular would begin offering service in New York starting on July 1. He provided some rate plan info:

$29.99 - 350 minutes, 1000 n/w minutes
$39.99 - 700 minutes, 3500 n/w minutes

I didn't ask about the other plans but these plans seem great. However, I wonder about service. I know that Cingular is sharing Voicestream's spectrum in New York City. Consequently, I figure Voicestream's current service is a good measure of Cingular's future performance so how is Voicestream in Manhattan? Any info is appreciated.

peter

p.s. the rep also told me that Cingular's exclusivity period on the Motorola v70 lasts until August.

[Jack]

Are those the new local plans

Jack

I think they are the local plans. I told the guy I didn't need it for travel.

peter

[bobolito]

That's some aggressive marketing for you. The current TDMA plans are more expensive now.

$39.99 - 700 minutes, 3500 n/w minutes
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That's a sharp package, I only hope this is not another California Market in the making.... I'm sure Voicestream will have no choice but to modify their rates to compete with Cingular GSM.

[bobolito]

Cingular sent me an SMS yesterday announcing that my phone email address was being changed to a new domain beginning July 27. That' shows they are making progress in smoothing out the differences they have between markets. They are changing everyone to email addresses in the form: 10-digit-number@mobile.mycingular.com

[Airb330]

That address works now too, it works for my friend now. (Cingular TDMA in DE)

[aiwapro]

Voicestream won't have to do much modifying to their rate plans, because Voicestream's Nationwide plans are almost the same as Cingular's Nationwide plans.

Ok Cingular, 700 anytime minutes & 3500 Night and Weekend minutes (local) = $39.99
Ok Voicestream , 600 anytime & UNLIMITED Weekend minutes (Nationwide) = $39.99

All Voicestream really has to do is add night minutes, and they are testing out UNLIMITED Nights in Chicago & Milwaukee.

[bobolito]

These new plans are just an incentive to get people like me to switch from TDMA to GSM. But not me. I believe these are not national plans, only local. I rather get 3500 N&W minutes instead of UNLIMITED N&W minutes if they give me more daytime minutes. Being a heavy user, I have not even come close to the 3500 minutes per month so I would give up the UNLIMITED deal to get more daytime minutes. Makes more sense to me. To go from UNLIMITED weekends to UNLIMITED nights, Voicestream has to do more than a little change as far as business marketing is concerned. That's why they've been timid to offer UNLIMITED night minutes nationwide.

Yes, Airbus, the new address has been working for months, but for some reason using that address I cannot get ringtones delivered to my phone. Ringtones get delivered only using the old address for now.

[Airb330]

Hmm that's odd Bobo. My friend couldnt remember hers so she tried the new one, and it was for a ringtone, but it was from Ufone.ca. That site rocks, just wish I had a phone that accepts ringtones, SOME 5185i's do.........mine DOESN't. Thats BS IMO.

[bobolito]

My current address is like 9085555555@mycingular.textmsg.com. Maybe they are just making that change here in NJ.

I too was using the mycingular.txtmsg.com address but I received the "free text message from cingular" announcing the new mobile.mycingular.com address I will have to use by the end of next month. No biggie really... If anyone wants to mail my phone I give them an alias anyway, so I just edited the alias to point to the new address... works great.