Cingular is messed up here

[Andy]

Sorry about the thread title, I'm not trying to start a bashing argument against Cingular, but here's some of the things I've noticed around here(Utah) and that are buggine me, since the person I talk to most has Cingular and it's annoying and aweful to talk to her:

- Cingular CS reps are desperate to get your sale and will tell you anything to get you to sign up. If you walk past their kiosk, be prepared to be hunted down by them, and basically forced to talk to them.

- Voice quality on both, the GSM and TDMA side is plain out aweful! Garbled calls seem to happen all the time and pretty much wherever the customer is. What happened to the once great AT&T network here?

- Coverage stinks. Just yesterday I went to two friends houses with my girlfriend who has Cingular and her phone didn't work in either of those neighborhods where I had good service.

- Calls drop and garble even in major, important areas, like downtown Salt Lake City, many large business areas and mall areas. The phone might show 4 bars, but when a call is initiated it goes down to 1. Indoor coverage and call quality is aweful.

- When calling a Cingular phone, people more and more get a message saying that the number is disconnected, then it works again the next time.

- Calls roll to voicemail, or the phone never rings at all. I thought that in GSM the actual phone was supposed to ring when I hear the first ring. Well, with Cingular here, i hear 1 to 2 rings before the actual phone starts ringing.

- Some Cingular customers never receive SMS from other carriers.


Cingular in this area is hopeless and I'm getting quite fed up because it seems like every Cingular person you talk to, be prepared to get cut off or have a garbled conversation. There's a lot of people here who want out, they seriously need to start caring about this market or they will have, once and for all, lost even more customers to Verizon and T-Mobile. There's so many problems with Cingular here it's almost unbelievable...any comments?


Andy

[AnthroMatt]

When people try to call me they get that "the number is disconnected" message a lot. It's pretty annoying.

Right now, since about 10 days ago, I cannot send SMS to T-Mobile people, even though I can send them MMS and I can receive SMS from TM. I don't get it.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by AnthroMatt

When people try to call me they get that "the number is disconnected" message a lot. It's pretty annoying.

Right now, since about 10 days ago, I cannot send SMS to T-Mobile people, even though I can send them MMS and I can receive SMS from TM. I don't get it.

So I guess the "the number is disconnected" message is a network wide problem for Cingular. It has gotten worse over the last few months.

Also, when calling Cingular customers it often takes about 10 seconds for the first ring, but their phone actually starts ringing after the second ring. Also, the caller's party ring often sounds so weird, even worse than calling a phone in Asia or something. Very, very strange.

[Rasputin]

We just had a coworker take one of the companies Cingular phones, up to Novel in Utah, 1/2 of the calls were garbled, dropped calls. Anytime I am up there, I just use my Verizon phone, the Cingular is more of a paperweight.

[viewfly]

Originally Posted by Andy84094

So I guess the "the number is disconnected" message is a network wide problem for Cingular. It has gotten worse over the last few months.

Also, when calling Cingular customers it often takes about 10 seconds for the first ring, but their phone actually starts ringing after the second ring. Also, the caller's party ring often sounds so weird, even worse than calling a phone in Asia or something. Very, very strange.

It seems pretty bad in Utah Andy. Has anyone ever called or better written a letter to CEO of Cingular with a complaint? If it is so universally bad, I would think they would listen...it seems they have in the past with other areas.

Here in CT, the phone number I dial either rings a split second before I hear it in my cell, or at the same time. I have never experienced the "the number is disconnected" message, ever. SMS has worked fine, even overseas back and forth to the US.

I have heard, many times, the funny ringing warble, but when the phones connects, the quality is fine. It doesn't seem to have a correlation to the voice quality. I think someone had a explanation for this, but I forgot what it was. I would hear the same thing on TDMA.

Anyhow, the route to take would be to go to the top, in writing, with how many people are unhappy. My guess would be that if it is that universal, they already know about it. The question then is why are they not bringing the Utah GSM service up to par? Don't have any answer, but I would certainly write a letter.
P.S. Don't tell you girlfriend that is annoying and awful to talk to her!

[Chinasaur]

I saw, on an SPCS info site, that Cingular was booted out of the BBB as of today for having too many complaints filed against them. If that is true, might this be part of why?

What you're describing makes the occasional Danger/Sidekick outages look like momentary blips. Hard to believe people would tolerate conditions that bad for long..

Best of luck.

[AnthroMatt]

Originally Posted by Chinasaur

I saw, on an SPCS info site, that Cingular was booted out of the BBB as of today for having too many complaints filed against them. If that is true, might this be part of why?

What you're describing makes the occasional Danger/Sidekick outages look like momentary blips. Hard to believe people would tolerate conditions that bad for long..

Best of luck.

It is true that Cingular got the boot, but not from every BBB, just the Upstate NY BBB. Still that's bad news and doesn't sound good no matter how you try to spin it.

[BillRadio]

I believe AT&T intially used 1900 MHz spectrum for GSM in Utah like they did elsewhere. By last spring they had completed adding GSM to all 850 MHz sites in CO, and coverage improved dramatically.

Is it possible Cingular has not completed this conversion in UT? Has there been a recent degradation in coverage, or has it been over the past year as people migrate to GSM?

Also, I spke to the Cingular PR people about why there have been so few news releases about new cell sites in the west, the mostly ex-AT&T areas, when so many are being added in the east. They told me, more is coming. But that was some time ago, and all that has been announced is new sites in CO, and that new service is expected in AZ. This is in addition to new sites for CA, WA and N. ID. There appears to be nothing pending for UT, NM and S. ID.

The BBB operates by complaints, it should be time for Utahns to make themselves heard if there are problems. Market attention is probably based on revenue, and while SLC is small, it's not that small. the best way to complain is with your feet...running over to the competition!

BTW, Cingular for me is excellent in UT, but I only use the I-70 "corridor" and in Vernal & Flaming Gorge.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

We just had a coworker take one of the companies Cingular phones, up to Novel in Utah, 1/2 of the calls were garbled, dropped calls. Anytime I am up there, I just use my Verizon phone, the Cingular is more of a paperweight.

To Novel in Provo, huh?
Yes, Cingular phones here completely suck. YOu cannot believe how many people want out of Cingular here in this area.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by viewfly

It seems pretty bad in Utah Andy. Has anyone ever called or better written a letter to CEO of Cingular with a complaint? If it is so universally bad, I would think they would listen...it seems they have in the past with other areas.

Here in CT, the phone number I dial either rings a split second before I hear it in my cell, or at the same time. I have never experienced the "the number is disconnected" message, ever. SMS has worked fine, even overseas back and forth to the US.

I have heard, many times, the funny ringing warble, but when the phones connects, the quality is fine. It doesn't seem to have a correlation to the voice quality. I think someone had a explanation for this, but I forgot what it was. I would hear the same thing on TDMA.

Anyhow, the route to take would be to go to the top, in writing, with how many people are unhappy. My guess would be that if it is that universal, they already know about it. The question then is why are they not bringing the Utah GSM service up to par? Don't have any answer, but I would certainly write a letter.
P.S. Don't tell you girlfriend that is annoying and awful to talk to her!

viewfly,
I actually am getting frustrated talking to my girlfriend on her cell, and other friends and people on Cingular. It's pathetic, it's that bad.
Sunday I was going to meet my girlfriend; I was getting out of work and calling her cell since she was waiting for me but I couldn't find her; I called 4 times, sometimes the phone rang for 3 times sometimes for 7 times before going to voicemail. I left two voicemails, 1 page. Her phone never actually rang and she got the voicemail notifications and page 20 minutes after I left the last one, and a while after I had already met her. It's not her phone, it's a universal problem.
AT&T TDMA used to be awesome here, my aunt had it for years, but switched to Verizon a few years ago and couldn't be happier, especially when her business partners have to use her phone to make calls because their Cingular phones are too garbled.
I haven't written a letter or complained, but I bet they know about the problem. Why they're not doing anything about it, I have no idea. I just know that once people's contracts are up, a lot are going to switch. I can think of 5 people that have left Cingular here within the last 6 months, all of which went to Verizon and couldn't be happier.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by BillRadio

I believe AT&T intially used 1900 MHz spectrum for GSM in Utah like they did elsewhere. By last spring they had completed adding GSM to all 850 MHz sites in CO, and coverage improved dramatically.

Is it possible Cingular has not completed this conversion in UT? Has there been a recent degradation in coverage, or has it been over the past year as people migrate to GSM?

Also, I spke to the Cingular PR people about why there have been so few news releases about new cell sites in the west, the mostly ex-AT&T areas, when so many are being added in the east. They told me, more is coming. But that was some time ago, and all that has been announced is new sites in CO, and that new service is expected in AZ. This is in addition to new sites for CA, WA and N. ID. There appears to be nothing pending for UT, NM and S. ID.

The BBB operates by complaints, it should be time for Utahns to make themselves heard if there are problems. Market attention is probably based on revenue, and while SLC is small, it's not that small. the best way to complain is with your feet...running over to the competition!

BTW, Cingular for me is excellent in UT, but I only use the I-70 "corridor" and in Vernal & Flaming Gorge.

Cingular actually seems to work better in not populated areas that they natively cover, like I-70. Weird. A lot of Flaming Gorge and Vernal is roaming on WW/Alltel though I think so you're not actually on the Cingular network.

People have been moving with their feet, some, like my girlfriends family signed up, and are not stuck in a contract(don't ask me why they didn't leave within 30 days). Others have left the company, Verizon getting most of those people. I heard over on HoFo at least 6 months ago that Cingular finished the 800 here in UT; coverage on both, TDMA and GSM has been crap ever since day one of GSM here.

[larry]

So the calls rolling to voicemail problem also affects GSM sometimes. Interesting.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by larry

So the calls rolling to voicemail problem also affects GSM sometimes. Interesting.

I heard that rolling to vm is a problem in GSM while on the move between cellsites, but Cingular's issue is more than that here.

[viewfly]

Originally Posted by Andy84094

I heard that rolling to vm is a problem in GSM while on the move between cellsites, but Cingular's issue is more than that here.

It must be so. Salt Lake City and the area around it is not that large compared to other places in the US that have good service, even rural areas. It is odd to have such bad service in a relatively small city footprint. Cingular must be ignoring the area for the moment for some reason.

I've never been to SLC, but I assume it is an flat area sandwiched between high mountains and the lake? Is the Tmobile coverage good? The tmo maps seem to indicate so.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by viewfly

It must be so. Salt Lake City and the area around it is not that large compared to other places in the US that have good service, even rural areas. It is odd to have such bad service in a relatively small city footprint. Cingular must be ignoring the area for the moment for some reason.

I've never been to SLC, but I assume it is an flat area sandwiched between high mountains and the lake? Is the Tmobile coverage good? The tmo maps seem to indicate so.

There is no reason for a carrier not to have good service in this market. Cingular service is not only bad in SLC, but along the entire wasatch front, where over 1/2 of the Utah population lives. What good does great coverage along I-70 do for me, a road that most people don't travel more than a few times per year, but service in the metro is crap.
It pretty much is sandwhiched in there between mountains and the lake, and there are some hilly areas as well. I live in a big valley about 2 minutes from the mountains, Sprint coverage is almost nonexistant at home neither is CricKet, Cingular breaks up, despite having 1 to 3 bars depending on where you are.
T-mobile coverage in SLC has improved a lot over the last two years; they used to have major capcity issues here. They now have surprisingly good coverage in a lot of places, even residential areas thanks to cellsites on wood poles(which does no good because as soon as power goes out they're out), but other areas they are surprisingly bad in. They've improved a lot though, and don't have a lot of capacity issues here anymore, but starting a few months ago, service has started going downhill again. All 4 of my supervisors at work have t-mobile and are about to switch to Verizon, my boss has Cingular and is going to leave them for Verizon as well.

CricKet is even better here than Cingular. It's unbelievable. What's surprising is that it seems like Cingular service/quality gets better as you leave the city, which hints capacity issues, BUT this is a GSM network and quality should not degrade much, if at all, with usage. They don't have as many subscribers here as Verizon and I believe have a lot more spectrum that Verizon has, and Verizon has no capacity issues here, so why should Cingular? Network busy messages and error messages are getting quite common on cingular and voice quality gets even crappier during rush hour times.

[viewfly]

Originally Posted by Andy84094

There is no reason for a carrier not to have good service in this market. Cingular service is not only bad in SLC, but along the entire wasatch front, where over 1/2 of the Utah population lives.

T-mobile coverage in SLC has improved a lot over the last two years; they used to have major capcity issues here. They now have surprisingly good coverage in a lot of places, even residential areas ,but starting a few months ago, service has started going downhill again. All 4 of my supervisors at work have t-mobile and are about to switch to Verizon, my boss has Cingular and is going to leave them for Verizon as well.

Well I guess those great online Tmobile detail coverage maps are pretty useless then. From them I would guess great Tmo service in Salt Lake. Have you gone into a Cingular corp store and asked to see there computer detail maps? Supposedly, they have them there, but not online.

In any case, If I were in your girlfriend & friends situation I would switch carriers too. I would miss the international roaming however, so I would really put pressure on Cingular for an answer.

It is an odd problem to have in your area.I agree that I can't see a reason while performance is so poor in what should be a easy area.

Let us know if anything changes.

[wgray8231]

I get my dad's Cingular voicemail all the time here. Part of that is the bad coverage at home (worse than when they had VZW), but he's not at home all the time. When the voicemail system picks up, I either hear a high-pitched beep or nothing until he says his name followed by the tone to tell you to start talking. I warned him about switching w/o trying it out, but he was only concerned about the money. Happy GTE->VZW customer turned angry Cingular customer.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by viewfly

Well I guess those great online Tmobile detail coverage maps are pretty useless then. From them I would guess great Tmo service in Salt Lake. Have you gone into a Cingular corp store and asked to see there computer detail maps? Supposedly, they have them there, but not online.

In any case, If I were in your girlfriend & friends situation I would switch carriers too. I would miss the international roaming however, so I would really put pressure on Cingular for an answer.

It is an odd problem to have in your area.I agree that I can't see a reason while performance is so poor in what should be a easy area.

Let us know if anything changes.

I have a Cingular detailed map on my computer It's all a lie I guess.
Tmobile does have good coverage in a lot of areas, don't get me wrong, but they're starting to get the damn echo that Cingular has here. It's getting worse all the time.
I just got home, tried calling my girlfriend from the car and got a message, twice, that the number I have dialed is not in service, the third time it rang weird three times before going to voicemail.

My family and I travle international a lot and have local SIM cards and an unlocked GSM phone, which actually is the cheapest method for us.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by wgray8231

I get my dad's Cingular voicemail all the time here. Part of that is the bad coverage at home (worse than when they had VZW), but he's not at home all the time. When the voicemail system picks up, I either hear a high-pitched beep or nothing until he says his name followed by the tone to tell you to start talking. I warned him about switching w/o trying it out, but he was only concerned about the money. Happy GTE->VZW customer turned angry Cingular customer.

Well don't ask me why all these people here that sign a cingular contract, see it's crap don't get out within 30 days and then complain. It's their own fault, partially, but someting is wrong with cingular here.

[Gamer03]

Originally Posted by Andy84094

Well don't ask me why all these people here that sign a cingular contract, see it's crap don't get out within 30 days and then complain. It's their own fault, partially, but someting is wrong with cingular here.

That sucks that your girlfriend is having problems with Cingular.

On the other hand, my experience (so far) with Cingular is the opposite.

Maybe it is excellent here because Cellular One (then AT&T after they bought them out) had a very good network when we signed up with them.

Then the network got bad so we went with Sprint. Then Sprint got bad, so Verizon was up to bat. Then I decided to try Cingular again, and here I am.