No more AT&T Wireless Alpha Tag

I have a friend in the Boston area that has Cingular. He has a 1900 Mhz only GSM phone and thus is always roaming on AT&T Wireless. As of today his phone no longer reads Cingular Extend, it now says Cingular.

 

yah, my phone in school today after lunch started saying cingular as apposed to cingular extend... so i told dan bout that.

on the otherhand my unlocked v600 still says att wireless when on att,so i guess we got a sim update

i do see the reason to buy a cingular phone, because A) some people have 1900 only phones, and maybe they want people to have MEdia as opposed to Mmode

 

The alpha tag on my ATT phone is also reading 'Cingular Wireless' as well--and I am in Tallahassee. I do wonder what is going 2 happen with my GoPhone plan though....

 

The push to everyone having "Cingular" branded phones is just that.

Branding.

Cingular can only use the ATT brand/branding for another 6 months I think. So its in there best intrests to get everyone onto cingular branded equipment.

 

This might confuse some people who roamed on Cingular. Now their alpha tag reads 'Cingular Wireless', but they are still getting the bad ATT signal.

 

T-Mobile phones roaming on AT&T Wireless in the Charlotte area (yes, AT&T Wireless, because it's far superior to Cingular in this area, so T-Mobile auto-selected AT&T Wireless over Cingular here) still have "AT&T Wireless" for their alpha tag.
Cingular TDMA phones in the Charlotte area still show "Cingular Extend" for their alpha tag (for those of you questioning me, there is no Cingular TDMA in the Carolinas and there never has been).

(Mind you, neither of these phones has been in native coverage for a few months. But it's still interesting.)

 

EXACTLY!!

This is the ONLY reason Cingular wants every AT&T customer to get new phones. BRANDING! It has nothing to do with the 1900Mhz phones, the alphatags, mMode or anything like that. There's nothing a Cingular phone can do that an AT&T phone cannot. However, they want to ease the confusion with the other AT&T Wireless coming that will use Sprint's network. This is why they have to get rid of the AT&T image as soon as possible.

Imagine how many people will see an old AT&T GSM phone (now Cingular) and they will want to get it activated at a future AT&T store (selling CDMA phones). They will end up buying the future AT&T CDMA service (and a new phone) instead of going to Cingular and Cingular doesn't want that to happen.

This is kinda abrupt, although they won't push anyone to do it. Cingular will simply take charge of the AT&T billing system and will continue to bill those with AT&T SIMs and accounts from that billing system. Those who migrate over to Cingular plans will get new SIM cards and are required to get a new Cingular phone and will be put on Cingular's billing systems. Although I see no problem if you bring your OWN Cingular branded phone (from Ebay) in order to migrate your AWS account to Cingular.

 

How long is it going to take for my alpha tag to start reading Cingular? I live in an area where Cingular didn't exist, until now. Are we going to have to wait longer than other cities that already have both?

 

Well, in North and South Carolina when I was formerly roaming on Cingular, my phone now shows "Cingular" instead of "CINGULAR" - I don't know if that means I received a SIM update, but it probably isn't a coincidence.

 

jkehe: Is this with an AT&T Wireless SIM, T-Mobile SIM, or someone else's SIM entirely?

 

AT&T TDMA phones in the Salt Lake City area still show AT&T if anyone cares(don't know about GSM phones as my unlocked tri band GSM phone only shows USA-380 and no name).

 

310-380 is AT&T Wireless PCS (1900MHz) according to GSM World. How about that, they wiped out the alpha tag and didn't replace it.

 

Yeah, 310-380 is AT&T Wireless, but I should have probably added that my unlocked GSM phone never showed the AT&T Banner... In fact, it shows Pac Bell or something like that for Cingular. Sorry! :biggrin:

 

My wife's V600 still says ATT Wireless in Portland OR

 

Oh. (Kinda like my Cingular Nokia 3390 showed VoiceStream for T-Mobile in South Florida, DC, and Boston.)
And try taking your phone to NC/SC/E TN/Coastal GA and see what it says. (If you ever do, it'll probably say "BellSouth" or "BellSouth Mobility DCS.")


On another note, calling AT&T Wireless gets you the announcement, "Thank you for calling AT&T Wireless, now a part of Cingular Wireless."

 

Well, AT&T's website also shows Cingular on it. Also, Suncom has completely removed "A member of AT&T" from its website.

 

But the ATTWS Charlotte/Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point/Raleigh/Durham -> SunCom transaction hasn't gone through yet. SunCom is still showing unlicensed in ZIPs 28201 (Charlotte), 27101 (Winston-Salem), and 27601 (Raleigh).

"We're sorry. Currently SunCom is not selling service in your zip code."
The URL is http://www.suncom.com/help/zip_att.html. Notice the "att" in the URL.
The title of the page (what shows in the title bar of the browser) is "SunCom | Contacting AT&T."

So AT&T isn't totally phased out of SunCom's page. But it's getting there.

So how long until 310-380 switches to 310-490 'round these parts, how long until SunCom will start selling service to the major metros, will T-Mobile customers keep being allowed to roam on the superior SunCom (currently AT&T Wireless) network, and, the real question, how long until SunCom builds a tower in Davidson, North Carolina?

 

310-380 is all of AT&T's 850/1900 networks.

 

Given the way the relationship between T-Mobile and Cingular keeps deteriorating and SunCom's seeming preference of T-Mobile over Cingular for its own customers' roaming, I'd expect that T-Mobile will keep preferring the AT&T/SunCom network in central NC over Cingular. I wish T-Mobile would switch from Cingular to SunCom elsewhere, though...T-Mobile is still preferring Cingular in Asheville, Greenville-Spartanburg, etc. SunCom IS available for roaming now (I can manually select them) but GPRS doesn't work...

I can't believe AT&T has no native coverage there -- then again, IMO, AT&T's buildout in NC was a lot like the one here in Atlanta: too darned small, with a overreliance on Cingular for exurban and rural coverage. I'd expect SunCom to fix that not too long after they officially take over.

-SC

 

Oh, there's coverage here, and it's far superior to Cingular's non-existent coverage, but AT&T Wireless is dead inside most buildings and is weaker the farther you get from Main St. and Concord Rd. Basically, they need another tower.

 

In SC - my phone still defaults to SunCom (USA 490) in many areas, but I can select Cingular manually and sometimes it defaults to Cingular.
In GA - my phone defaults to Cingular in most areas, but does use AT&T towers in Downtown Atlanta. T-Mobile shows up on the selection screen, but access to their network is denied.
In NC - my phone defaults to SunCom (USA 490) or AT&T when it is available. Cingular never comes up unless manually selected.

I am showing Cingular instead of CINGULAR on my screen now, though. Seems to me that it means that they sent a SIM update through. My screen still shows USA 490 instead of SunCom though, so they must not have updated that.

Jeff

 

My v600 is still showing AT&T Wireless here in the Tampa Bay Area.

 

My phone still says AT&T Wireless in the Waldorf/La Plata, MD area. When I switch to Cingular it now says Cingular Wireless instead of CINGULAR. I guess it's going to take time to get all areas switched from AT&T Wireless to Cingular Wireless.