AT&T Wireless Dropping Regional Plans soon ?

as long as your promo minutes do not have a expiration on them they should carry over as well, if you ever change your plan you will lose your plan and cannot go back to it later

 

They are dropping the Regoinal Plan but Nobody has seen the new local plans we are only hopping that they will expand the local plan coverage areas...Can really blame ATT (I work there) they have been losing money in some markets beacuse people raomign some much on Regoinal Plans..I think it will make some people mad but will be good for the company in the long run.................

 

I work for them too, i know here in Atl the local plan will expand to the whole state...

 

What a relief (I was concened about customers who need coverage in rural south GA being forced to go to DOR to get the coverage they need. Of course, customers who need coverage in rural south GA are stuck with TDMA to get analog roaming,which there's too much of in south GA thanks to VZW taking over Price ...)

-SC

 

I realize that most of this is just speculation, but does anyone have information on how or even if the national plans will be affected?

 

As long as you don't change your plan, the bonus minutes stay in effect. They do not expire at the end of your contract.

 

Stanley.... Why would they be roaming analog in south GA? US Cellular runs TDMA down there... wouldn't AT&T customers roam on them or do they have the USCC system in the forbidden list in the IRDB? I can understand it not being included in the NN plan, but for regional customers, it wouldn't matter at all, even if it was roaming, there'd be no charge.

 

USCC doesn't have all that much coverage in south GA -- most of south GA is VZW/Price A, ALLTEL B. That said, AT&T does roam on USCC instead of ALLTEL in areas of south GA/the FL panhandle where USCC and ALLTEL have service and AT&T (and Cingular) don't.

-SC

 

AT&T roams on USCC as well as Cingular in South GA....but it depends on where you are....the current IRDB has SID 1155 in as a favored SID which gives it preference over the favored SOC (3) for Cingular.

Heading down I-75 from ATL to FLA...there is continuous TDMA coverage....Cingular from below Atlanta through Macon to Warner Robbins....then Cell One through Cordele...Cingular again around Tifton and USCC from there to the FL line...same goes for Albany.

I think the Analog roaming issue comes into play in SE GA..near the coast...as their is a hole along I-95....Triton drops out below Savannah and AT&T out of Jacksonville ends at the FL/GA line.

 

I was thinking more of areas away from the interstates in areas between Macon and the USCC 1155 system, and in areas out along I-16 (Dublin, etc.)...once VZW goes CDMA in the ex-Price areas all the "CellOne" TDMA will eventually go away.

At least AT&T will continue to roam on VZW -- VZW/ex-Price's analog coverage is significantly better than ALLTEL's. (Oddly enough, in recent PRLs VZW prefers ALLTEL's analog over their own that they acquired with Price! VZW CDMA [SID 1015] is preferred over either their own or ALLTEL's analog, though.)

-SC

 

Now that I look at USCC's coverage map for south GA/north FL, I see what you mean. They don't really cover THAT much, and it's laid out kinda strange. They don't cover along the coast, but they have that parallel stripe of coverage heading towards I-16 (I assume north of Waycross?), and they don't cover too far west of I-75. I wonder, though, how good coverage is IN those areas. I know they seem to cover most of their other southern systems very well (especially east TN/west NC), so I don't see any good reason why that system should be any different (although the Knoxville system is very old, being SID 104 and all). Hopefully they'll go CDMA down there soon because right now Knoxville CDMA customers are stuck roaming off network (but not paying roaming fees, apparently) on Alltell and/or VZW? It's weird how CDMA customers go to that area and it's still their "home area" even though they're not even using a US Cellular system. I've actually inquired with USCC about this and they've confirmed that people on a local plan from Knoxville would not get charged for roaming even if they were on Alltel in Tallahassee.

 

Today is the last day for Regional plans in Southeast....Also the last day for 99$ unlimited GSM service

 

ATT is changing its plans to make them simpler. The C|Net article (http://news.com.com/2100-1033-983897.html?tag=fd_top) on it didn't say that they were going to axe certain rate areas, but it did say that GSM and TDMA plans would be the same (same minutes for the same price). Seems a bit unfair to me since ATT pays for TDMA off network roaming, but doesn't allow its GSM customers to roam off network. Never mind the fact that GSM is more than 3 times more efficient than TDMA and GSM phones cost the provider less money so they don't have to subsidise them as much.

 

I recieved my collateral for the new pricing changes the other day and they are going to be simpler but ouch! alot of people love the regional plan, stinks to lose it......If we only had roaming agreements with Tmobile that would be nice, other than that theres noone to roam with except cingular and there GSM is less than ATT right now

 

Actually, Cingular's GSM is pretty built out. They just aren't selling it in many areas currently. They still need to stress test it and make sure that it won't disrupt their TDMA customers. Check out their deployed area at http://onlinestore.cingular.com/ima..._Network_Maps/map_PN_GSM_genesis_01_24_03.gif.

 

I hope its better than the map a customer showed me the other day...No service here in ATL? itll get here soon enough im sure

 

i don't know how you are doing with the new orea rules but they are killling me up here in pa. about 30% of our cust come from out of the orea. now i have to depend on prepaid cards to make $

 

I love the fact that I read this thread after the Regional Plan expiration. I called AT&T today to renew my contract and was informed that regional was no longer an option, but I would be fine if I continued to pay my contract month to month.

My 100 free minutes/month has already expired so there is no chance of me renewing my contract to add this promo. At least I can keep the regional plan by paying month to month and have the option to switch to another plan/service when something that I like becomes available.

 

The next date that AT&T changes plans is on May 11th 2003. Hopefully they'll give better promotions on their National Ntwk plans.

Be careful after your contact expires and you go month-to-month. Your promotions on Nite and Weekend packages or extra anytime mins may expire or may not, deoending on whether they were listed as 'for life'