Cingular hangs up on some Michigan Customers

Cingular had to remove the 'Cingular Extend' tag because when they went with the nationwide plans, there was no roaming charges, and it was confusing people. Only when I'm overseas, do I see the local telcom's tag on my screen.

This story is confusing to me. I'v googled and cannot find anything more than the original article. So how many students were affected, 5? Also, the women states that none of her contracts has this legal clause on it, while I've seen it for 3 years at least.

The two big carriers use roaming partners to get coverage. I really can't blame cingular corp for not wanting someone camping out for years in a non native area...that's why they don't offer service or have cingular stores in those areas. But I agree, that the local rep in Detroit should have checked on that for them and that Cingular should void the ETF for good PR.

I do think that for a family plan, the whole block of minutes has to be over 50%, not just a single user. But those college kids can talk alot.

When I go visiting colleges for my kid, I check out whether there is coverage AND and local cingular store in the area.

 

Jones, I bet that's because either you have a non-Cingular GSM phone or your phone has been modified to show the actual carrier name. However MOST CINGULAR CUSTOMERS have an unmodified Cingular branded phone and therefore they CANNOT see the real carrier name if they are roaming.

I have a V635, which is a non-Cingular GSM phone and I can see the real carrier name if I am roaming when I travel through the US. I also had a V400 Cingular branded phone in the past which I had to modify to show the carrier name. However, that's me. The average Joe doesn't know how to modify a Motorola phone to show the real carrier name, and will not know if they are roaming.

 

When I was looking at switching to Cingular the store manager made it very clear that there is "NO ROAMING WITH CINGULAR". If you have service you can use you phone without fear of roaming or long distance charges or fear of being penalized (terminated) for roaming too much.


I was informed of this not only by the Cingular Corporate store manager, but by Cingular 3rd party retailers also. Fortunately I know better and chose to go with another carrier. But this is where the problem is. Along with Cingular "hiding it" when you are off network by displaying the Cingular alpha tag no matter who's network you are on.

 

There was nothing wrong or dishonest with what the Cingular store manager told you, except for a small twist in the very last phrase. Remember that other carriers charge you for roaming, by the minute, cingular does not. And to some, roaming means leaving your 'home area', Cingular does not have that. Unlike some very surprised Verizon customers, Cingular never charges for "roaming" in the US.

If you travel around the country, like a salesman, you are not very likely to rack up more than 50% of your time (over one year, I think that is the metric) off network. However, if you squat in one area off network, you can have problems and he should have told you that, but it is an oddball experience that he would not have thought of, unless you asked. Every Cingular brochure that I've had, states that clause in the fine print, and I've asked what that meant. Sometimes they did know themselves, because it is oddball.

I think if you did this with another carrier, they would clamp down too. I do think it would be nice if Cingular gave you a month or two 'heads up' that your over your 50% limit, and I guesst they did according to the OP...they have until April to make a change in the caller pattrens or switch. But given that they have a family plan, and the family plan minutes are shared, there is no way that Cingular could predict that say 1500minutes between 3 or 5 family members would add up to 50% over many months. So one college kid is using more than 750 minutes/month over the school year for the entire family? Well, I guess they are using M2M.

A little common sense would be useful. It would be nice if Cingular could display Cingular and beneath it 'provided by tmobile' or whatever. But to most users, it means nothing, and probably would only confuse users that switch to Cingular, in that they may think they are being charged (like there former carrier), when in fact they are not.

 

Yes, current plans, but Cingular came out with nation wide roaming free before verizon, and this is what new customers probably want to know about. I've know some very angry verizon customers that left because of roaming.

How does 'IN' calling work. There are some limitations:

National IN Calling
If Caller ID is not present or Caller ID Block is initiated, National IN Calling does not apply to incoming calls and will apply to outgoing calls only. National IN Calling is not available to customers whose wireless exchange restricts the delivery of Caller ID or with fixed wireless devices with usage substantially from a single cell site. National IN Calling does not apply if Call Forwarding or No Answer/Busy Transfer features are activated or to data usage, including Push to Talk calls, Picture Messaging or Video Messaging, calls to check your Voice Mail and calls to Verizon Wireless customers using Airfone® Service or any of the VZGlobal services. National IN Calling does not apply in those areas of Louisiana and Mississippi where your phone’s roaming indicator flashes.

 

I could not find any caller ID limit on M2M with Cingular, nor any limitations regarding Louisiana and Mississippi (which is strange, anyone know why).

Here is the exact wording on Cingular's 50% rule:

Cingular reserves the right to terminate your service if less than 50% of your usage over three consecutive billing cycles is on Cingular-owned systems.

3 consecutive billing cylces (not one year as I said above). That is pretty hard to acheive: one could be roaming every other month on a non cingular network and not be called to the carpet. Again, that is over all users on a family plan, not a single user.

As I said before that legal statement has been around at least 3 years. But even so, the Cingular rep should have picked up on it for the college kids.

Overall, I say that this is not that big of a deal as it is being made out to be.

I typed in the zip code for Central Michigan University in Mi on the cingular web page and if offers no plans in that area. Probably a good thing to check out if your planning to have your kids use phone at school

 

Here's Cingular's take on M2M:

"Mobile to Mobile Minutes: Mobile to Mobile Minutes may be used when directly dialing or receiving calls from any other Cingular phone number from within your calling area. Mobile to Mobile Minutes may not be used for interconnection to other networks."
LINK: http://onlinestorez.cingular.com/ce.../legal/pop-planterms.jsp?q_planterms=postpaid

It is worth mentioning that when they say "within your calling area" they mean all of the US when you have a nation plan, or if you still have an old regional plan, then it means your regional calling area. At least there aren't any "gotchas" with Caller ID being blocked or not transmitted. I have purposedly blocked Caller ID as a test and calls still come out as M2M in my bill. Also, checking voicemail is M2M on Cingular. I don't think that's the case with Verizon.

 

Of course not only the two big carriers use roaming in order to provider their 'nationwide network' plans, but guess what, Cingular is the only one that doesn't let people know they are roaming.

Cingular always shows the Cingular alphatag.
Verizon shows "VERIZON WIRELESS" or "EXTENDED NETWORK" , plus they do NOT have a roaming rule.
Sprint shows SPRINT PCS AND Digital/Analog Roam
T-Mobile even shows the Alphatag of who you're roaming on....

One thing is having a roaming rule(which carriers today shouldn't have since they advertise national plans), Cingular is one of the only carriers left with the roaming rule, but then let customers know when they are roaming so they can tell whether or not they will be violating the TOS, but don't make them believe that the Cingular network is the biggest and is everywhere, and then send them a nasty letter that they've been roaming too much. Bad business.

 

Actually, Verizon's ACII plans, which have been out for a very long time have no roaming charges anywhere in the U.S. either, period. And there is NO roaming rule, plus the phone will let you know when you are off the Verizon network. You are referring to the old ACI plans that have been done away with a long time ago. Keep that in mind.

 

My cingular bill is from SBC, and checking voicemail is M2M minutes.

 

Were the old AC plans ended on Feb 2005? The verizon website has that date as the difference between non roaming charges and roaming charges. I guess some are still on the old plan? Excuse my ignorance, but I don't use verizon.

Back on topic, I think the number of effect cingular users is very small. This is the first case I've heard of it.

 

This is a very big deal IMO too. I sold Cingular for a few months a couple of years ago during the AT&T acquisition. In all the brochures (including all the not for public stuff) Not once did they make any note about roaming. If a customer had any doubts about roaming you sold them on the national plans. Because "if you have signal your not roaming". I remember a woman who was a past customer came in with an outragious bill. It turned out she was on a regional plan and her daughter/son was away at college. My boss called CS talked to them and got her on a national plan w/o hesitation and was able to get her bill reduced.

Now 9 months later my sister's LG phone decided to start camping out on Dobson's GSM network, the only phone doing so on our account. The issue got escalated to executive services. I was told that I had to switch to a national plan for the roaming charges to be taken off our account. I ended up lying, I agreed but didn't switch untill we had too. This artical just floored me with all that has happened to me with Cingular. Cingular is walking on thin ice with this one. :nono:

 

On the National Coverage map CMU as it is called, is completly covered with orange. I know that doesn't mean it is cingulars network. But if it is on the map as orange, it should not be considered roaming...

 

That isn't how it works, the maps just show General coverage for a customer not which network your on, all carriers do this with their roaming partners as part of the coverage map.
I can see where the confusion seems to be, You CAN roam at no addl. charge with Cingular (and other carriers that have these agreements) but if you go past 3 Consecutive months on someone else's network, they then have the option to let you go.

I still don't think Cingular is going to charge these people the ETF, but if they do as you said Jrip then they are going to see major legal issues hitting them.

I still see this as a ploy by Cingular to get more towers up in these area's that NIMBY'ers are causing them a problem & they want the State & Federal Govt's help getting them up. Especially with this in the article:

Unfortunatly I have never been to MI so I don't know how far Midland is to the other area's in this article.

 

Yes, but the point is that you can roam in that area, but Cingular will not sell you service if you live in that area. Not via the web or , of course, a cingular store because there aren't any. This means that you cannot get a local number for your phone in that CMU area.

I think all the posters agree that it would be better if Cingular lets you know when you roam, but they would have to couple it to a % timer of sorts to be useful for the 50% rule they use. That seems pretty impractical. Perhaps a better idea would be to list it on your bill, so that you can track it for yourself.

But most likely this is not a big problem.

Years ago, at least three years ago, we had three cingular phone in the same hotel room. Two were 'Cingular Extend' and one was 'Cingular' I called c/s and they said we would be charged roaming, even though I had a national plan.

Of course they were wrong and I wasn't charged anything. The software and accounting was pretty bad, and caused a lot of confusion to people. At the moment friends that have old regional tdma plans seem to know when they roaming via the display.

I have little sympathy for a women who has a regional plan and doesn't realize that a kid out at college would be roaming. Hey they had a coverage map didn't they?

But Cingular will have to do something...or they realize that the problem is small and by the time they fix it, they will have added enough towers to make the problem very tiny. All they have to do is make sure all the college towns have good native coverage...now that would be good for business.

 

You are correct, viewfly, but the fact that Cingular was the first, as you say, to introduce true nationwide no roaming plans does NOT excuse their making customers believe that their network is the biggest and is everywhere, and then cancelling their service, and charging them the ETF even though there was no way that 99.9% of people could tell they were roaming.

 

See, if Cingular is going to enforce their roaming rule, then maybe they should differenciate on their maps where roaming areas are and where their own network is, OR have the phone display to customers whether they are on the Cingular network or not so that they will know not to go against their TOS, but wait, either of those ways would reduce Cingular's advertising campain and their making people believe that their network is the biggest and best. I mean Verizon crippling bt on their phones is bad and horrible all right, but Cingular having a roaming rule, but wanting to make people believe that their network is the biggest and best by hacking their phones and having them always show CINGULAR is horrible. And yes, all national carriers include roaming coverage in their national maps, but can you tell me which one still has a roaming rule, or on top of that has a roaming rule and hacks their phones so that the customer has no idea when they are roaming?
I mean 99.9% of the customers out there are not members of WA or other forums to know this. They look at the orange map, know that they have a national plan with no roaming charges anywhere, and have a cellphone that always shows the Cingular alphatag whehter they are in Alaska or roaming on Dobson in the Northeast. How can they tell??? How should they know???
Then there's those that say that customers would get confused if their phones would show the real alphatag of the carrier they're roaming on...just like...T-Mobile...are any T-Mobile customers confused about their free roaming??? Not really...but wait, the effect that this would have is that it would show a lot of Cingular customers that they actually are roaming quite a bit off other carrier's networks, even in areas you wouldn't expect it. I've had a Cingular phone for the past few months, and it astonishes me to see how much I roam on carriers like T-Mobile even in urban areas where the phone just switches over. Sorry for the long post.

 

Of course Cingular is not going to sell service in an area they don't have native coverage in...no carrier really does that. The point is that having TRUE alphatags, not Cingular/Cingular Extend would not create confusion, but would make it possible for the customer to track when they are roaming and get a more accurate picture of it. I mean with Cingular it really wouldn't matter to know if you are roaming or not if there wasn't this 50% rule because all features work while roaming, etc. but if they are going to have a rule, they need to make sure that they enable people to have access to the information as to whether or not they are roaming before they make the call. Sprint used to have a 50% rule- they didn't have a timer on there saying how much you alread spent roaming, and they didn't need to. If I know when I"m roaming and I know how many minutes I use every month, it isn't hard to know if you are roaming 90% of the time or only less than 50% IF you have access to knowing whether or not you are roaming in a geographic area.
My friend's Dad travels to areas where he continually roams on Suncom, T-Mobile and ALLTEL and didn't even know it until I pointed out to him that Cingular has no native presence anywhere in the state other than a tiny little corner. He talks a lot on the phone while there and is surprised at the good call quality in the middle of nowhere where in the middle of Salt Lake their phones don't work well....well I told him he was roaming and he didn't believe me at first. T-Mobile doesn't confuse clients by showing true alphatags. Cingular is afraid that they'd lose the well-working ALLOVER status that they've gained if they show true alphatag because some people would be alarmed at how much they actually roam.

 

I said it many times that it would be nice if Cingular displayed what network your on, or when your roaming. I have no disagreement there. But I don't think they are being HORRIBLE or dishonest because they don't have it displayed. As you said, there are still some people on older Verizon AC plans that need to know when they roam because they can incur charges. Cingular hasn't had roaming charges for a much longer time on their National plans. Whether or not your roaming, Cingular M2M, web connect and all digital services work nation wide, with no additional charges. The roaming tag has cause great confusion for cingular customers in the past.

And if Cingular did have roaming display why would it hurt them any greater than Verizon in their advertising? Verizon uses roaming partners too. I don't buy that argument.

BUT, maybe the real confusion here lies in that the 50% roaming dispute is not a 'rule'. An example of a rule is when you go over your minutes and your charged extra minute fees ($.40 to $0.70/min with all carriers). No questions asked, your charged.

However cingular 50% roaming legal statement is a 'reserves the right to terminate' statement which means it is at Cingular discretion whether they terminate or not (see my post above). My guess is that if it is an important market or an exceptional circumstance they won't terminate someone.

For example, before the merger, everyone roamed in NYC on ATT or Tmobile. Either by swapping with their compititors or just paying the roaming fee, the market was too important for Cingular to worry if CT customers who commute and work every day in NYC were roaming. No one was cancelled due to it.

An exceptional circumstance might be if someone has to be in a roaming area for a month or more, but plans to move back to 'home' area. I did that for many months and did not have a problem. A variation of that was a friend who had to be in another state and went over his minutes because of a terminal illness in the family. He called Cingular and they wavied the overminute charges...pretty nice.

A bad example would be for someone, fully knowing that they cannot get Cingular's great rollover plans in their home area and getting a phone contract outside of their area with the deliberate intention of roaming year round in a non native service area. Cingular is just giving themselves an out clause. The college students case would be for four years.

And finally, just becasue a wireless service doesn't state explicity such a 'reserve the right' clause up front , they still have the option. Look at Verizon's Customer agreement, copied tonight from their web page:

Our Rights To Make Changes
Your service is subject to our business policies, practices, and procedures, which we can change without notice. UNLESS OTHERWISE PROHIBITED BY LAW, WE CAN ALSO CHANGE PRICES AND ANY OTHER CONDITIONS IN THIS AGREEMENT AT ANY TIME BY SENDING YOU WRITTEN NOTICE PRIOR TO THE BILLING PERIOD IN WHICH THE CHANGES WOULD GO INTO EFFECT.

These are Verizons CAPS, not mine, BTW.

So Cingular sent the Michigan customers a one month notice, just as verizon could. Just like any business, they can change or make new rules.

And if you think not having a 'roaming' icon is a big deal, read further Verizons Agreement with their customers and tell me how does one figures this out, again when they have ONLY National no roaming plans. This is the normal, not pre pay, customer agreement:

Roaming And Roaming Charges
You're "roaming" whenever you make or receive a call using a transmission site outside your home rate and coverage area, or using another company's transmission site. Your wireless phone may sometimes connect to and roam on another company's network even when you're within your home rate and coverage area or local calling area. There may be extra charges (including charges for long distance, tolls, or calls that don't connect) and higher rates for roaming calls, depending on your calling plan

OR

Charges and Fees We Set

Usage charges may vary depending on where, when, and how you call. You have a home rate and coverage area and a local calling area (which may be different). When you call from inside a local calling area to somewhere outside of it, or call from anywhere outside a local calling area, there may be toll, regional calling, or long distance charges in addition to airtime. (We provide or select the long distance service for calls on our network.) When you make a call inside your local calling area that uses a local phone company's lines (for example, a call to a typical home phone number), we may charge landline or connection fees.

That is pretty vague statement considering they have no roaming charges on the new AC plans. I do beleive that no one is charged roaming, but that language has a lot of "may be's " and fuzziness in it.


My argument is that the 50% clause is not a hard 'rule' that kicks in automatically but a 'reserves the right' clause that any corporation has at it's discretion, whether written or not. I've known cases were Cingular doesn't enforce it. So far this michigan situation seems a fluke and not a major concern for most people who are roaming on Cingular. If that wasn't the case, I would agree that it is a horrible situation.

Sorry for the long post, but this is being blown way out of proportion to the real situation. I think there is more to the michigan story then we know. I sure Cingular wants college kids to have a good feeling about Cingular, so there might be more to this then written. Unfortuately, the news media only report the first story, and rarely the followup because it is less sensational.

Of course the college kid's family has a simple solution...just talk a bit less or bump your monthly minute plan up a bit to get around the 50% possibility...but it may make no difference now

 

Like I said before, Cingular customers could care less about whehter or not they are roaming, BUT Cingular does have the roaming rule and they do reserve the right to cancel your service and charge you ETF if you roam too much. Since they have the rule and since they reserve the right to cancel your service because of it, customers should have the option to know whether or not they are roaming.

About the NYC thing: It wasn't 'roaming' in that case, it was a shared network agreement. CA/NV for NY, but since Cingular did not have a network there, of course they couldn't terminate contracts or get people in trouble because they were roaming in NYC. It was a network sharing agreement, enough said about that- that explains it.

About VZW reserving the right to change rules, every carrier actually has that in their fine print AFAIK. Cingluar did not change the rules, they just started enforcing it, and having people pay the ETF since obvioulsy they went against their TOS.

About you asking to figure out VZW roaming fine print...what's so hard about it? It says that depening on your calling plan(meaning that local plans and old AC plans) you may be charged roaming depending on where you are. And yes, even with Cingular you are "roaming" when you are not on their network, but it's the fact that neither Verizon nor Cingular charge customers for roaming on other carrier's network. I doubt that those TOS are for new AC plans only, it's a generic fine print and of course VZW has to point out that certain toll charges, etc may apply (for local plans) calling outside their calling area or for old AC plans.

It's simple, if Cingular is going to be enforcing their roaming rule(even if it only affects .01 of their customers that roam more than Cingular wants) most of those customers probably don't even know that they were roaming...Cingular needs to make it clear to customers that they are roaming, then they can enforce their rules.

Cingular is touting their ALLOVER network and I've had friends that were pretty amazed when they are in the middle of nowhere UT(roaming on ALLTEL) and in rural Northern Cali(roaming on Edge), or rural Wyoming and Cingular has their own great coverage everywhere. Of course it's the roaming carrier that has built a great network in those areas. They looked pretty dumb when I informed them that they were actually roaming when they made crystal clear calls in the middle of nowhere with a Cingular alphatag on their phones.

Sorry my post is so lenghty too.

 

Andy,

All I really get out of this is that your upset that Cingular's Allover network appears better because they don't ID when they are roaming, like Verizon does.

In NYC, the roaming indicator triangle came on and the alpha tag was Cingular Extend. If you didn't have a national plan, you payed the roaming charge.

Last post.

 

I agree 100% with you Andy they shoud either show it on their maps or better yet have the Alpha Tag either show the carrier or do like AWE use to do on their TDMA phones and have it say "Extended Network" or Cingular Extended" and have the roaming symbol show up on the user's phones, I know when I use to see this on my old phone I knew I was on another carrier, and if I was going to get charged with Roaming fees I had a good heads up ahead of time.
Either way It does stink they did this and they should come up with a better way to help people that can be out of the carriers normal coverage area for an extended time know they are and take steps to avoid an ugly situation like this.

This way it wouldn't cause them to loose their advertising portion of the phone.

 

Ok, I lied, not my last post.

It occured to me to find out who Cingular's roaming partner might be. The only GSM carrier in Mt Pleasant, MI is CelluarOne, owned by Dobson. 27 miles to the east is Midland, where both Cingular and CelluarOne provide native service.

Further south, in Ann Arbor, by Detroit, CelluarOne has no native service, but Cingular does. CelluarOne and Cingular are roaming partners, and provide Dobson with no roaming fee, nationwide plans.

I wonder if there is a "home rule" clause in some of these roaming agreements between carriers (say between Dobson - Cingular). This means that roaming is fine, but if the person moves (ie 3 consecutive months with 50% usage, or longer, ie permanently) into the roaming partners 'home' turf, they must be dropped so that the home partner can collect the monthly fee revenue. Of course they could go to Verizon, but in this case Verizon has no native service in Mt. Pleasant either, i.e, on the Verizon web page , you cannot buy service there.

Simple business transaction, and maybe not all roaming partners have the same agreements, which would explain the "reserves the right to terminate clause". Different response for different roaming agreements.

These college kids in Mt. Pleasant have it tough. Verizon offers no native service in area code 48859 either. Nor tmoible. Alltel provides CMDA service in the area, but they have a ' termination for too much off network' roaming clause too.

I wonder if Verizon will be kinder and let the kids roam with the parents family plan geographically started somewhere else. Certainly would be good PR. But how does that work with Verizon roaming; would the parents and the college kids, be considered "IN" for free M2M, like Cingular?

 

This is PRECISELY why I never went with Verizon in the first place. I can see they still preserve the same old "Bell Atlantic" school of policies from back in the 90's. There is just too many "if's", "may be's " and fuzziness in their fine print. Cingular has always been much simpler, clearer and straight to the point.

 

Before there was even a T-Mobile agreement in NYC, I roamed 100% of the time in here (NYC area) for 4 years! Cingular never said a word about it.

More specifically, I got my first TDMA phone in 1999 from pre-Cingular (Cellular One). Cingular was formed in 2001, and I switched from TDMA to GSM in 2003. So for me that was 4 full years of 100% roaming on AT&T TDMA system in this area (1999-2003). Cingular never said a single word about it and I knew all along about their 50% clause.

From 2003 until the merger with AWS, I was using the T-Mobile shared network which were the worst 10 months of my life! But that's another story.