Use an old cellphone? Upgrade or pay more, says Cingular

It sort of makes sense, if you think about it. I would have gone in a different direction, however, and just stopped TDMA and AMPS the day the FCC says that you don't have to have it anymore.

Plenty of warning would have been given out before hand to those with TDMA or AMPS handsets but once the FCC says you don't need it anymore, it's gone and those people are left without signal.

I would have loved to have kept my TDMA Timeport but it was not to be.

 

I think they want to get everyone off of these networks prior to Feb. 2008, if they have no more customers using Analog they can stop using it & TDMA can be stopped at any time per the FCC.

This is actually an early warning of a sort, it's just they wanted to get more money in their pockets & using the Strong handed approach vs giving these people letters saying you have till 2008 to migrate over.

Plus as discussed in another thread, the less people using these technologies, the more expensive it is to maintain them for the carrier, so they are looking at this end of it as well.

 

I think they could have imposed the fee and used a softer strong-handed approach.

For example, explained that TDMA and AMPS are not only outdated technologies but explain what GSM has to offer. Tell them they have X months or X days to migrate to a GSM handset, GSM plan, etc. Then, with a 24 month contract, give them the option of a free basic phone and an inexpensive middle-of-the-road model and then give them new customer pricing (again, with a two-year contract) on every other existing model. They could even have discounted 'full retail' pricing on some phones for those who didn't want a contract.

I don't know... it all just seems a little mean. Obviously, Cingular doesn't want AMPS/TDMA subscribers anymore because it costs them a lot of money to have these people on the network, but they can't abandon long term customers just because they happen to have old phones and plans.

Though, Cingular's new Lifetime Value policy pretty much means they're looking at exactly how much each customer makes or costs the company and basing offers on that. I think this TDMA/AMPS thing is just an extension of that.

Again, this also sounds mean, but why spend time and money trying to save a customer who is actually costing the company money? Customers won't understand that but it makes sense to me.

IMHO, Cingular could use different wording to say the same thing, making it better for PR and easier for customers to understand.

 

I do agree with you on this MOTOhooligan, they could have done a better approach to this, they just have this "We are the biggest" attitude that is starting to hurt them & have lost the humble we care attitude that smaller companies have & they use to have.

Their new rating policy has been put on hold, since good customers were getting bad ratings of even an LV1 and they found it very flawed, but this does kinda go hand in hand with this new fee they started adding.

They need to look at both the length as a customer with the strongest weight on perks vs just "how much money they are giving us", over the long run a person that is loyal should be taken care of, because they will stick with the company & recommend them to others vs bad mouthing them.

That's what these companies should all do, give your long term customers the benefits they deserve for being loyal.

 

cingular has been making every effort to migrate these people since they bought ATT almost 2 years ago... and before that ATT was doing the same... every time a call was recieved an offer was made... bill inserts (you know the things you never read), website , outbound calls...

now its down to the crunch and its "nobody is giving me any options"...

I have yet to see anyone that has not recieved at least one offer in the last 12 months by at least one of the afore-mentioned methods... in most cases 4 or 5...

its not from lack of trying....and the offers that are being made now ain as good as they were 6 months ago...

 

http://forums.wirelessadvisor.com/c.../55618-cingular-desperate-get-people-off.html