NC coverage!!!

Cingular is pretty good in NC. They would be cheaper for you and you will get a discount with them. Just go ahead and give Cingular a try then. If you don't like the service simply return your phone within 14 days to get out of paying a ETF.

I do NOT recommend you buy online unless you are really sure that you will be happy with the phone and carrier you are choosing. Sign up with Cingular at a corp store or a well known authorized reseller. Best Buy has some great deals with Cingular.

Be warned even though Best Buy's prices for Cingular phones can't be beat they have some of the biggest idiots working there. Research Cingular a lot online and know what you are buying before you go to Best Buy. If you know something is right and they argue with you then just walk off and go to somebody else. I'd also recommend that you take a friend with you that knows a lot about wireless phones and is maybe familar with Cingular if you go to Best Buy.

 

I live in Winston-Salem. Cingular is absolutely awful in western Forsyth County, including Clemmons, and Lewisville. Basically anything west of the US-421/I-40/I-40BUS intersection is trouble for Cingular. For a few hours yesterday, BellSouth landlines couldn't connect to Cingular phones. The old BellSouth Mobility DCS equipment is getting antiquated. I know so many people who had Cingular and watched the network degrade. Network busies, failed calls, dropped calls...it's getting better, but it's still not good. Verizon, in terms of coverage quality and voice quality, is the best in the Triad, and in all the major metros of NC. Alltel is second in coverage quality, but their voice qualiy isn't very good. I would choose AT&T Wireless over Cingular if you plan on staying in the Triad and in major areas. Sprint PCS is worth considering, but there are some network congestion issues. They're getting better too.

The cheapest family plan with reliable service in Winston-Salem, in my opinion, would be Alltel, AT&T Wireless, Sprint PCS, all followed by Verizon Wireless.

 

I would stay away from AT&T Wireless in NC. The AT&T Network in NC will be taken over soon by SunCom Wireless. SunCom is one of the worst wireless companies I have seen and you do not want to be a SunCom customer. ALLTEL or Sprint PCS might be worth looking into if Cingular doesn't work out for you.

 

I did'nt have any problems in NC w/ Cingular.
Just remember you can compare them within 15 Days and
Return the One that does'nt suite your places of Coverage.
Then just pay your usage.

 

I agree, SunCom sucks, but the AT&T Wireless network is a heck of a lot more reliable in Winston-Salem than the Cingular network.

jones: Where in NC?

 

W-S/Greensboro is a good cell market as is most of NC. Most of the carriers work well in W-S/Greensboro area. Cingular or ATTWS work great in North Carolina. They roam on each other and coverage is good. I travel all over NC, Va, and TN for my job. I use Sprint and there coverage is excellent. Verizon's coverage is excellent and as much as I dislike Nextel they have good coverage in NC as well. If you just hang local to W-S and GSO and don't need long distance Crickett is an option. Just don't expect it to work outside of there local area.
Welcome to W-S a GREAT place to live.

 

If Cingular will roam on AT&T Wireless in the Triad, they might be worth a look. (My SIM card prohibited me on every AT&T Wireless network I tried, but let me on any T-Mobile network I wanted. AT&T Wireless seems to have fewer problems in western Forsyth than most others. I can't tell you how many times I saw Cingular phones say "Emergency Only.")

 

I been to Winston-Salem, Cingular is OK here. I have relatives in NC.

 

I live in Greensboro and would have to agree with SQ. VZW, Alltel and Sprint are all worth a look. Cingular and AT&T have spotty coverage and I was told that would probably not get any better in town.

I have a colleague who lives in Clemmons and gave up his Sprint phone for VZW due to the lack service at his house. Cingular doesn't work in my neighborhood and I'm only about a mile from the nearest tower.

 

I actually make half of my calls from home originating from the VZW Clemmons tower. That's a powerful, tall tower. I knew SPCS had big trouble in Lewisville (but everyone does), but I wasn't aware of any problems in Clemmons proper. Does your colleague live in the Lasater Rd. area? That's in extreme western Forsyth County. I have a few friends who live out in that area and SPCS is truly spotty to dead out there. VZW is best, followed by Alltel, then SPCS, AT&T Wireless, and Cingular. Cricket is just stupidly bad. But that's the way it is for pretty much the entire Triad, isn't it?

There's a VZW billboard along I-40-BUS in Winston-Salem, visible when headed eastbound just after passing the Stratford Rd. interchange. Funny thing is, it's literally 200yds from a tower that seven providers are on. I'm pretty sure it's VZW, Alltel, ATTWS TDMA, ATTWS GSM, Cingular, SPCS, Cricket. The tower is 300yds from a Cingular store (talk about giving ridiculously good impressions of your service ) and across the street and 0.2mi down the street from a Sprint Store. (One of my friends went into the Cingular store to ask them to work on a phone that had recently started dropping a whole lot of calls. They ran tests and said it was fine. My friend asked where the nearest tower was. They pointed out the front door of the store. You can see the tower from the door!)

 

Several of my co-workers who live on the edge of Clemmons close to Lewisville have had problems with Sprint reception at there houses. I was at one person's house and I had an acceptable signal on my Sprint phone. He replaced his 3 + year old Samsung phone for a new Sanyo RL7300 and while it is not the strongest signal in town he can make calls from home without dropped calls or switching to a roam signal.

 

The problem of signing with ATTWS in the Triad is this: With Cingular's acquisition of ATTWS, the Triad's current ATTWS network will be swapped to SunCom after the acquisition in exchange for SunCom spectrum elsewhere. Cingular will keep its current Cingular network in the Triad, not the current ATTWS network.

So if you live in the Triad and want to eventually be on Cingular after the ATTWS acquisition, I believe you would have to sign with Cingular today, not ATTWS. If you sign with ATTWS in the Triad now, you'd end up being a SunCom customer.

And yes, I'm from the Triad area, having just recently moved to Atlanta.

 

He might actually live in W-S. It's not far from Heather Hills Golf Course. I remember him telling me he had to walk down the street a little to get service.

The Cingular store I went to in Greensboro has a tower right out behind the store--go figure... If you're familiar with the area, it's on Westover Terrace next to the Outback Steak House.

 

When the merger is over ATTWS customers will become cingular customers. There native coverage will be on Cingular towers and if Suncom acquires some of ATTWS network it will be a network that Cingular may roam on.

 

Heather Hills is in the Clemmonsville Rd. area which is nowhere near Clemmons. I'm a little surprised about the poor service there actually, given its close proximity to I-40 and both Silas Creek and Peters Creek Parkways.

 

As part of a deal SunCom/AT&T/Cingular came to agree on. The AT&T Wireless network in North Carolina and Puerto Rico will be sold to SunCom. AT&T customers in those areas soon after the merger will be SunCom customers.

 

You have given me some information my son did not want to hear. He thought he would be going from ATTWS to Cingular but now we find out it will be Suncom. He is going to be moving to Denver next summer and ATTWS has coverage there. He has a great plan and wants to keep his NC number but wants no part of Suncom.

 

I visited Greensboro like 5 times and Cingular is pretty solid here.

 

Jones, I think the people who live in the area are more reliable resources. scottb had a Cingular phone for a while, but gave it up because it just plain didn't work in many places. My phone stopped working well in 2002. And I replaced the phone...it wasn't the phone, it was the service. Cingular is just not good in the Triad. Anywhere else in NC, it's acceptable, but not the Triad. Get someone else.

VZW has a handoff problem about 2 miles west of the NC-801 exit on I-40 in Davie County. It's the SID 95/139 switch and calls always drop around there. I was stuck sitting in the dead zone in traffic today (not moving - major accident at the NC-801 exit) with next to no signal for a minute due to the SID change. I know how roamer1 feels now, living on a NID change.

VZW coverage in north Mecklenburg County (Davidson, Cornelius, Huntersville) is spectacular and cannot be surpassed.

 

I usually drive to get to this area. So i would say i did'nt have any problems using their service.
Of course No carrier is 100% coverage, all of them have dead spots.
But i would say Cingular is strong in the Carolinas.