Future of Cingular TDMA

From what I understand Cingular/AT&T are pretty much going GSM. They will continue to have TDMA service for their customers who have TDMA handsets but they no longer offer TDMA handsets, will no longer activate new customers with TDMA handsets nor will they allow existing customers to put an old TDMA handset on an account. Your friend will probably have to go with Cingular GSM unless he knows someone with an existing Cingular account that already has a TDMA handset on it.

 

Well, there isn't any future for TDMA. The 7-Eleven probably has probably been planning this prepaid service for a long time and they could only launch it after TDMA became obsolete. But I believe they will get rid of it soon and sell GSM only.

 

Cingulars TDMA prepaid service only works on Cingular towers and charges an obscene amount for roaming on other providers and is a two step process for dialing the number which is confusing and time consuming process which would scare off many people from choosing it. Of course if you use it all the time while not roaming, use GSM.

 

Not sure about the Speak Out program but Cingular GSM Prepaid comes with voicemail turned off.

And yes, that DOES speak volumes about the customer service. (We occasionally have these little anonymous surveys that come out to test the reps on how well they know the minutia of cingular policy/procedures/products; of the people who take it (and I'm sure they are plenty who don't) each question will be answered incorrectly by 1/3 of the people who answered it) I'm no exception, I took one yesterday and made a 50%

Post Acquisition Cingular or ATTWS GSM customers will have just "Cingular" it won't jump to "Cingular Extend" if you go off the network in the states but will say the provider of whomever your roaming on internationally. This is supposed to go into effect within the first 6 months of the acquisition if not sooner
However the TDMA phones may continue to show whatever they do now, I think that's stored somewhere deep in the phone. My current Nokia 5125 used to read "Plateau" on it, i took it to a cinglar store telling them I wanted to update the IRDB and when I got it back it read "Cingular" (the woman told me they "reflashed" it, funny becuase I still had the wrong IRDB)

 

The name of the network displayed will depend upon the phone. I think with TDMA phones, they are pre-programmed? So in all likelihood the phone will always say ATT if the phone is an an ATT SID. GSM phones have the SIM card that can override the display the phone would like to show (i.e. showing "Cingular Extend" instead of "AT&T Wireless"). I think for a change in a TDMA phone there would need to be a change in the software or in the programming menu of the phone.

 

i'm afraid no one knows that for sure, CDMA overall (like with Verizon) comes pretty close

 

in theory, if 100% of the "new cingular" customers (all 46 million of them were) were on GSM then that would definetly influece the smaller regional providers to make the switch, (hey guys, want some slightly used GAIT phones?) and then that would help improve the coverage in those regions where we lack it.

i've seen the "post-acquisition GSM" maps and coverage definetly improves inbetween california and central US, one of the trainers joked that you'll definetly have better coverage as long as you aren't in the mountains, which isn't really true, but there is definetly more coverage, and native at that

 

That's why I keep an old deactivated CDMA phone with analog support in my car. I just leave it off and have to remember to charge the battery every few weeks

 

That's weird... I would think they'd want to stop offering TDMA (unless they're trying to get rid of a surplus of TDMA handsets) so that they could keep removing TDMA bandwidth to add GSM to their system.

 

Cingular charged me a $4.99 TDMA fee on my last bill. I originally had service with SunCom for about $40. Then AT&T took over. Then Cingular finally took over. Now, my bill is about $70 per month for the same plan! This is after I dropped the insurance on my Nokia 5160. I hate to part with my 5160, which I've had since '99, but I'm dropping Cingular. This fee was the last straw. I'm switching to Net10.

Oh... I got this from Cingular in the mail... It might interest some of you.

 

Interesting... I got the very same letter a few days ago but it did NOT include the paragraph about a $4.99 charge for continued TDMA service. My plan runs about $90 a month and is based in Colorado.
Dennis

 

My contract expired about six years ago. It has just been on a month-to-month basis since then. Maybe they don't charge the fee if you still have a contract, or maybe it varies by state or something. Although, on one of my previous bills it said any contract termination fees would be waived because of the additional fee if you canceled within 30 days.

 

Wow, talk about bring alive an really old thread, this is over 2 years old.

 

Yeah, I did a search concerning Cingular's phasing out TDMA and found this thread. I figured I would bring it back from the dead just for fun instead of creating a new thread or finding a newer one.

 

I am a legacy TDMA customer too. In the past 6 months my service around the country has decreased by at least 30% from previous years. I pay the $4.99 service charge but Cingular isn't giving me anything for that extra fee. It seems to be all about squeezing me into their GSM network. It's just not practical for me since I spend about 4 months a year travelling in the Western states. GSM coverage just isn't there yet. GSM coverage is adequate in my home area. My impression is that Verizon coverage is better nationally. Verizon will cost more because of the lack of roll over minutes. At the moment, I'm paying $40 for 850 anytime minutes, unlimited nights and weekend, starting at 7:00 pm. Any change within cingular/AT&T is certainly going to cost more. I used to think that cell service would just get cheaper and cheaper. Now I think that we are all so hooked to our phones that they can exploit our dependence and charge whatever the market will bear.

 

Do you actually use your rollover minutes? No contract today will get you 850 minutes for $40, just isn't going to happen. With TDMA being shutdown I'd look at switching now versus the last minute. Better deals are on the table for free things and when the day comes next years they'll be shutting it down as fast as possible.

 

Cingular is charging the fee for several reasons, and not for "Extra service", that is unless you consider your phone working at all an extra service. It is costing them a lot of money to keep that network operating, yet very few of their customers use it. It is also to help prod the TDMA customers over to a GSM or UMTS phone. By this time next year your phone may be just about unusable as they phase out that network. Cingular has already dangled the carrot of no upgrade fees, and free phones out there. Any remaining TDMA customers will either eventually upgrade or they will wake up one morning and their phones won't work. Your phone is on a dying network and it won't be long before you will be forced to upgrade, or switch carriers. I warn you that even the CDMA carriers are moving away from analog roaming as analog is slated for shutdown not long after TDMA.

-Jay

 

I don't blame you for not wanting to switch from TDMA to GSM in the West. There are a lot of areas here that only have TDMA/ANALOG and CDMA only.
I travel to rural areas all the time here in the Western U.S., this is why I carry two CDMA providers with me. I have an all digial phone on Verizon, and while I have never been stranded completely without service, I have an ALLTEL CDMA/AMPS phone that "goes the extra mile" because it has AMPS. In many places in the western U.S., a CDMA phone, especially with AMPS capabilities will get you far more coverage than a GSM phone. Sprint actually has plans called "SERO", which anyone can sign up for. They include free roaming, data, and everything. When it asks you for the email address enter
savings@sprint.com. They offer 500 anytime minutes, unlimited everything else for $30. This is the closest you will get to your current plan. Hope this helps. Sprint also has excellent roaming agreements in the WEstern U.S.

 

The problem with Cingular's carrot is it has a hook in it -- a two-year contract. I'm not sure why they would ever charge anyone an upgrade fee. Those are both surefire ways to run loyal customers off. I've had the same service plan and phone for seven years (longer than Cingular has existed!). They've managed to get rid of me with their $4.99 fee with nothing in return. I was probably one of their most profitable customers. For years, I have only been using a small fraction of my plan's alloted minutes. Getting rid of Cingular is going to save me a lot of money. I'm actually glad they prodded me into dropping them, but it was a dumb move on their part to drive people away.

If they were interested in retaining customers, they would offer a basic phone to them for no cost and without a contract. If they can't do that, they should offer them a phone at their cost with a monthly discount, since they aren't subsidizing the phone.

I am finished with contracts for good. Net10 has the best fee structure I have seen. You pay ten cents (plus sales tax) per minute, period. Their phones are cheap. There's no contract whatsoever. There are no hidden fees. There are no roaming fees. There are no overage charges.

I just wish Net10 had some real competition to help ensure their current fee structure will continue. All Net10's competitors that I know of have gotchas. They charge taxes, daily access fees, etc.

I'm sure a few people manage to pay less than $0.10 per minute with a contract-based plan. However, I would be willing to bet that the majority of contract-based plan customers would discover they pay more than $0.10/minute if they divide their total monthly bill amount by the number of minutes they actually used.