Question about Cingular's Partner Coverage Area

How much time are you going to spend at home? The problem that I've read about online about Cingular flagging accounts was not necessarily for 50% of usage off network but more like 100% of the usage on a partner network. Depending on how many months out of the year you will be at home this may or may not be a problem. If you plan on being at home more than 3 months of the year, I would consider another carrier. I know for sure that T-Mobile and Verizon also cover Richmond natively, not sure if they are available in your hometown.
Hope this helps.

 

Another possibility would be to go with a Pre-Paid phone, this way when your done with college, you don't have to worry about cancelling your contract or being off network for more then 3 consecutive months.
This is just another option, if you want or need a contract then go with Andy's suggestion.

 

I think you'll be OK shortly. I understand that Cingular is going to start building out in the Richmond area so you should be OK.

 

How long will you be in Missouri? 3 months, or a bit less? If you arrive home about June 5, and start back by Sept. 5, you won't raise any flags. Especially if your billing date comes before or after those dates. And even if it's a bit more, they won't do anything until the bill for the 4th month!

If you get a good discount, and Cingular has the best service, AND you can live with a local Richmond number all year, I would have no concerns about using Cingular. At worst, come next August or September, they might disconnect your account, but by then, you will have already racked up a lot of hours on their own network, mitigating their concerns. And if they do, they terminate your account without penalty. And, you can call them from Richmond, and say, "see, I'm back!"

Are you sure you will have service in MO?

 

i would say go with tmobile cuz if there is no tmobile service it will almost definitely switch over to cingular for roaming but tmobile doesn't have that no 50%-over-three-consecutive-months rule you can roam as much as you want and you get the advantage of the Cingular network when Tmobile isnt available

 

You should be fine with Cingular. I didnt realize today how spotty their native coverage in MO really is. Especially in the north they rely heavily on their roaming partners. Which part of Missouri are you in?

 

YOu should be fine with Cingular. Where we work is roaming partner coverage, and where we live is 50% roaming partner coverage. It's been that way since we signed up in June 2005. I haven't gotten any cancellation notices, and I call CS before signing. They assured me there would not be any problem, or cancellation.

 

I could be wrong, but I would be surprised if Cingular flagged your account or gave you any problems. If you are a good paying customer, and explain the situation to them I would be real surprised if there was an issue.

 

I guess not since they charge $0.49 per minute to roam. I was shocked when I saw that they charge $10.00 per megabyte to use another carrier's Internet. It is like Pay Per Use on Cingular. Apparently they do not charge extra for 850MHz roaming but they have a limited selection of phones which have that band.

 

That does all depend on where you are, I know here in NJ & NY you can't roam on Cingular with T-Mobile and visa-versa, and I am sure there are other parts of the county like this as well.

 

Wirelessly posted (Q's Mobile Device: Opera/8.01 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/2.0.4719/1378; en; U; ssr))

With TMobile, voice roaming applies if you have a regional plan or if you leave the country. Also, all current phones now have 850 so tmo users can take advantage of 850 sites around the nation. If tmo and cingy are both roaming (or have no service), I'd try the roaming company if I find myself in that area long term.

 

Wirelessly posted (Q's Mobile Device: Opera/8.01 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/2.0.4719/1378; en; U; ssr))

In Florida, Cingular doesn't roam and TMobile only roams on Cingular in part of SW Florida where is no TMobile signal. Cingy seems to have more of the rural parts of the state covered. I went camping in Liberty County (rural co. west of Tallahassee) and it was covered well by Cingular...Unlike tmobile.

 

That's interesting, guess Cingular is getting as much revenue off T-Mobile there vs paying them for any roaming abilities.
I would like to see them offer roaming between both everywhere to get fuller coverage, but then they wouldn't be able to compete properly, so they must build out more.

 

yeah but Verizon and Alltel's roaming agreements give them almost full capabilities of eachothers networks and there competition functions just fine

 

That's a good point, maybe then it's just Cingular doesn't want to pay out more then it has to.
Again I am sure different area's have different agreements between them so I guess if both are fairly strong in an area they don't need the agreements as well as in some area's if they roamed on each other it may cause capacity issues for each.

 

I think you just hit the nail on the head, I mean in large urban area's Verizon doesn't roam off of sprint or vice-versa either, it's just business sense.

 

Again, this depends on the area. Sprint ALWAYS has at least ONE roaming partner in each geographical area, even if they offer native coverage. Verizon has roaming avaible depending on which area you go to where they are native.