Don't get Cingular if you live in Southern California.

If you live in Southern California, DON'T GET CINGULAR THEY'RE HORRIBLE. U don't receive calls or you can't make any calls. If you can make a call, they will drop your calls all of a sudden. They are really bad with their reception. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-disgusted.gif[/img] A group of my friends and I are with Cingular. We are really unhappy with their service. What is the use of having a cell phone when you can't use it. My advice for others that are considering switching to Cingular is PLEASE DON'T!!! I think Cingular's new AD slogan is "Can You Hear Me Now, Hello?!! Can You Hear Me Now?" It is worser than Sprint. I think the best service is AT&T.

[KevinJames]

Indeed, Cingular is going through some growing pains. Hopefully within the next several months, some improvements will change your mind about them.

One of the big problems is that potential and new customers do not first look for the best service, but the cheapest price. Those prices are available for one reason and one reason only--to attract new subscribers. The problem is that Cingular attracted a lot of new subscribers, too much for the network to handle. But this is being addressed.

[larry]

The family plans and mobile to mobile minutes that they were giving out cheap last year also hurt them as it made the network overcrowded. Try using Cingular during peak times near any University in So. Calif and you will likely get busy signals.

[Dukedog]

Hopefully, Cingular will began adding the capacity and upgrade in the west petty soon, before they lose all their customers.

[larry]

Some cities/counties require a building permit to add capacity to towers if any new equipment must be added. This process can take over a year sometimes. Hopefully they found a way around this obstacle.

[aiwapro]

Well they have to add something to their network. Voicestream will be their soon, and they will be using the same network. Of course more towers and things are being put up. If things don't turn out right, then Voicestream should take away Cingular's rights to New York.

Cingular has to spend some money on this area, because it was in the contract with Voicestream that Cingular has to spend the first $450 million before Voicestream will spend a dime. That's not the case in New York though, Voicestream doesn't have to spend anything first.

[CaliphoniaBoy]

We had the same problem with Cingular in NorCal about a year ago - system busy, dial ten times to get one call through, voice mails that took a few hours to be delievered etc.

It was esp. bad right at 9:00pm when off-peak minutes started, then the cingular phone was practically useless

The situation HAS IMPROVED significantly - I have not had many of these problems in the last approx. 6 month!

I don't know if they actually added capacity or if just many people got sick of it and cancelled their contracts.


C.

[Dukedog]

It's probably both, people cancel and they added capacity.

[Apoc]

Much better when they were former GTE and Pacbell markets....

[KevinJames]

The people that ran PacBell Wireless are the same that run Cingular. But I do understand the subjective perception of Apoc's post. Anytime there is change of name the populous automatically assumes that the controlling powers have changed too. Not true in this case. If anything, the hierarchy that reported to PacBell (Pacific Telesis holding company) now merely report to SBC, which bought out all of PacBell. For the most part, the only thing that went away was Telesis (and even it still has remnants around).

[gdogcal]

I believe Kevin is correct, and at the same time Apoc is as well. In this specific case, the dilemna came when Cingular significantly decreased the prices of their calling plans, while nearly simultaneously releasing the newer model Nokias. This was back about a year and a half ago, just at the end of the 2000 Summer. Ultimately what occured, as has been mentioned, is that the younger crowd was being heavily marketed to and, accordingly, began to sign up en masse.

Where I think people sometimes attribute the name change to a decrease in service quality is, in fact, the culmination of several events which created the situation. Coincidentally the name change came just a bit before that time and presto, customers draw the lines between A & B events. When the company was known as Pac Bell, service was better. Ironically, when the company changed their name began to do an incredible job of marketing and selling their product, that was when the problems began to occur.

At least, this sounds right to me, make sense?