I switched to Sprint once I started paying my own phone bill and am really pleased with the reception (6 bars in the city where I live). I've never really had to use customer service, so I can't say whether my experience with them was good or bad.

I am in Austin (NW part of town, but heavily populated). When Cingular bought AT&T, they required me to use a "Cingular product", so they shipped me the Motorola V220 (camera phone). I asked if they would simply send me a Nokia phone, but they said they would not. After 6 years and thousands of dollars, if they will not authorize a different brand of phone to keep a customer, I don't think it is worth staying with them.

I had Cingular and a Nokia phone for 2 years. The service was ok, but there were reception problems and the such every now and then. For some reason, whenever I went into the local Wal-Mart, my phone would start roaming. And I hated that I couldn't call my voice mail outside of my 'home' network, even though I had nationwide service. Then the phone started crapping out on me, spazzing randomly, alarm didn't work, etc. I switched to T-Mobile because they had the cheapest deal at the time, and have had no problems other than a strange signal interference that seems to be on a 20-minute cycle when I'm in my apartment. That's the only place that happens, and it's not really a big deal. Yeah. So I like T-Mobile. Oh, and my Motorola phone works fine.

I have no problems with Cingulars service in ATL or anywhere else I've been, even the west coast.

I just HATE my Motorola phone!

I'm switching back to Nokia as soon as I hget the chance.

Hey Babe, did you mention what kind of phone that you had when you were with AT&T? My guess is that your old AT&T phone was a TDMA phone whereas the V220 is a GSM phone, which operates at a different frequency - I know this is the case in my mother's situation - she literally lives within 1/2 a mile of a former AT&T Cell tower but we cannot get Cingular to tell us whether or not it has any GSM channels on it so I'm reluctant to have her switch phones since my parents live in the boonies.....

Yeah, this is the Carriers-merging issue, kids... cingular went to GSM because europe'sn GSM, which means the phones made for europe will also possibly be made for cingular. It worked with the moto. But if you were old-school att, you were tdma, and *not every tower* just get converted right over. In fact, the difference can be staggering. We (VZ) did it on a rolling basis back in the day going from ancient analog to cdma out in the boonies, when we'd take over some bumble carrier. That shit's expensive, converting towers over. Sometimes (most times) carriers don't have the cash or the cajones to switch over 100% right away, when, say, 65% cut-over covers 95% of people. It's a numbers game.

GSM is the wave of the future.
We signed up for AT+T right when GSM was coming out, and it was horrible, like we would drop probably 80% of our calls, and then lose service for an hour, so we dumped it and went to sprint for a year, which was not too good either, but AT+T was way better when we went back to GSM with a Nokia phone.

Did they send you that Motorola phone for free? I am amazed that they couldn't send you a Nokia one, as they have a bunch of nokia ones available for regular purchases. Does your phone have a SIM card? You can probably get a Nokia phone off Ebay that is a Cingular locked GSM for cheap, and pop in your sim card and be good to go. This is what I did when my nokia died on me. I bought a new phone for cheap and used that while they were repairing my good one.

Cap'n - you work for VZ?? I work(for now) for Western Wireless - we do business as CellOne in the Midwest but are Merging with Alltel sometime in the near future at which point and time I'm likely out of work.....tell me about the carriers merging issue...

No - the Nokia phone was GSM technology as well. I produced an event for Nokia at SXSW a couple of years ago and they told me it was the way to go, so I went with it and had very good service with that phone and that service for about 2 years. The problem is probably the Motorola phone, so that is why I asked them to give me a Nokia -- and was really surprised when they told me no.

We'll see. Maybe Timmyjoe is right. I'll go buy a Nokia (cheap) to see if it helps.

Trev

No, not anymore. I did three years and then my wife made me quit... she was tired of cheering me up. CellOne, eh? Oh yeah, you all were on our roaming lists, as were altell, because you guys were the "roots" carriers who trailblazed low-pop areas like northern Wisconsin, so when our customers went up into God's country, the only cdma choices were (are) alltell or cellone. It was always speculation on our part as to when (not if) we'd buy out the smaller guys, since we tended to do that. It's cheaper than building the area out yourself. It usually makes the bought customers unhappy for a little while (the usual backlash), but when the dust settles, the big guy has maybe a few hundred thousand customers and big, shiny new trophy to show off in its local adds "Expanded Coverage in the North Woods."

I've got Verizon now and I've only had one dropped call in 5+ months.

Stay away from Sprint. 3 of the most annoying years of my life, per cell phone usage.