Cingular in Maryland/DC

[grewal]

I am currently a sprint customer and have had no real problems with the service, but my wifes phone died and they're customer service regarding the problem is horrible. Now i am considering switching to Cingular. i heard that before the AT&T merger, both at&t and cingular sucked, but now cingular is good. i want a national plan with the rollover and the international capabilities. any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. how is cingular in the maryland/dc area and nationally and has anyone used thier phone while in europe or south america?

thanks--

[bobolito]

For me, Cingular has always had excellent coverage in DC.

[JDScott302Cingular]

Originally Posted by bobolito For me, Cingular has always had excellent coverage in DC.

I have never been to DC but all my roomates have been and they have great coverage there with both 32K sims and 64K sims. Nice to see you here bobo.

[Airb330]

I've had problems in DC. I've been there for a whole day once with Cingular--it worked OK around the mall. However, we took the metro in, and it sucked along the way--and this was above ground. Cingular 850 cellular service is extremely weak in many areas. Everytime I travel through DC I always lose service on the beltway!! It flips to ATT. ATT's PCS network was much better in DC than Cingular. For a 20 year old cellular network--it sucks. Last time I was in DC, I got some horrible network problems which sounded like 2,000 people screaming at me. I'd seriously avoid Cingular in the DC area right now.

Eastern MD is pretty good. Decent service along route 50. It was an old Dobson system. It still has holes in it however, in which it flips to a full T-Mobile signal. If one was on a call though, I'm sure it'd drop. I don't understand why these holes exist in an otherwise strong E. MD network.

[Jay2TheRescue]

I've had Cingular for 5 years now in the Northern Va / DC area. I've always experienced better coverage than my Dad did (His company had AT&T until about 6 months ago when they switched to Verizon) My Sister had T-Mobile and her phone almost never worked, then she swtiched to Nextel. My Motorola V551 works where Verizon and Nextel don't and my Dad lives in an area with no towers. My phone works at his house, his doesn't, and he's jealous. Hope this helps you, later, Jay

[Rasputin]

Cingular has good coverage in the Greater DC area, I always felt that Verizon is slightly better in a few spots, but overall there are pretty close.

[viewfly]

I have family in the DC/MD edge that have used Cingular for a few years - no complaints. I used Cingular in dowtown DC for visit - no complaints.

Works great in Europe too. Probably the best idea is to make use of their 30 day trial period and see for yourself. 'seriously avoiding Cingular' would be a mistake on your pocket book, IMO. C/S is getting better, but still not always uniformally great, but liveable.

[Critic]

A friend of mine who moved from Dallas to DC (Arlington, specifically) had an old ATTWS Nokia (GAIT, I think), which naturally became Cingular after the merger. Both before and after, she couldn't get signals in her apartment, and had lots of coverage issues in greater DC.

But now she doesn't have any problems, because she's iN. Which works well for me. =)

[viewfly]

ATT never sold a Nokia GAIT.

Grewal, you probably should have posted your request in the Southern US Wireless Forum that covers, DC. Given the wildly different experiences posted, you can see that WA sometimes can be of little help. So you will have to decide for yourself, and the only way to do that is ask friends locally, and/or make use of the 30 day free trials (return phone with no questions asked) and use it where you plan to be. If you want international capabilities with the largest selection of phones for that, you will have to decide between Tmobile or Cingular (GSM providers). Cingular will have the better Nation coverage of the two. You will need to select a tri or quad band phone for international use.

Then let us know your decision and you can be an expert too!

Good Luck.