Fuck you Cingular

When did you start charging me for receiving text messages? I thought only Verizon was lame enough to do that. And now I hear you're changing back to AT&T again? Why even change to Cingular in the first place?

Oh, I can't stay mad at you Cingular/AT&T. You really do have the best coverage. I never get dropped calls (unless the person on the other end belongs to a shittier company such as Verizon or T-Mobile) and I always get reception. I just wish you wouldn't do little tiny things that piss me off, like charging $2.10 for incoming/outgoing text messages instead of only $1.40 for the outgoing ones.

I'd sign up for your $5/month text messaging plan, but in order to make it worth it, I'd have to be sending 51 text messages a month.

Cingular was a joint venture between SBC (an original Baby Bell) and Bellsouth (another original Baby Bell).

AT&T Wireless was a spin-off of AT&T.

AT&T Wireless changed to Cingular after Cingular bought AT&T Wireless.

SBC then bought the original AT&T (the original parent company of SBC) and changed it's name from SBC to AT&T.

This new AT&T (formerly SBC) purchased Bellsouth thus becoming the sole owner of Cingular.

The new AT&T changed Cingular back to AT&T because they want a uniform brand-name.

So currently, the AT&T that used to be Cingular is not the same AT&T that used to be AT&T.

Is that clear?

LOL

^ Pretty sure that Gods are still working it out with charts.

I switched to T-Mobile for...questionable reasons.

I managed to break the earbud for my phone. Rather than shell out $15-20 for an earbud, I decided to just go back under contract, get the free phone, and with it the earbud. I got halfway through the deal only to find out Cingular no longer provides earbuds with their phones.

So I bopped over to T-Mobile and asked if the same Nokia phone I was gonna get from Cingular came with an earbud. "Of course. All our phones do." And now I'm trying T-Mobile.

(Of course there was a "one-time activation fee" of $20 so I still wound up paying the same, but I got a new phone and actually found a lower rate plan than the Cingular plan.)

I use sprint, I'm happy.

Same here.

Especially the free talking after 7pm and on weekends.

Yep I like that a lot. Sprint PowerVision is a plus for me too.

Verizon does just fine for me.

'Course, I'm not one of those sad bastards who live and die by their precious mobile phone life line. Might not have as much of an informed opinion.

Me too, but I found out too little too late that my phone is crippled as far as 3G service goes.

I have Cingular and the only place whrere I get dropped calls is at my friend's house - but she lives in the middle of nowhere, and I mean NOWHERE, in redneck land! She doesn't get signal on her Verizon phone either.

But Cingular, though a bit expensive, has been good to me.

Got Sprint, plenty fine w/ it. Don't even care about the free after 7PM and weekends deal, because I never go anywhere near using up all my minutes. In fact, if they offered a cheaper plan w/ less minutes, I'd try it, but I think I've got the cheapest/least minutes plan they offer currently.

Local provider, I speak to a person, face to face, when I have a problem.

Cingular has always charged for incoming text messages. And by the looks of it you are still in a 10 cents in/out market. That'll become more painful when you are switched over to the new 15 cents in/out.

The nearly 4 years we've had Cingular (the first one or two years it was actually AT&T), we've never been charged for receiving text messages. The bill would only show up for sent text messages, and we would only be charged for sent text messages.

And I thought only Verizon was changing it to 15 cents? And besides, they can only charge that if customers sign new contracts. Otherwise the customers are allowed to cancel without an early termination fee. So it'd be stupid to force customers halfway through a contract period to pay 15 cents per SMS. I'm also pretty sure that it would be illegal to charge more than the agreed contract.

[action=Bailey]laughs at the idea of paying to receive a text message.[/action]

The old AT&T plans didn't charge for receved texts... Cingular plans always did.

Depends, most of the time the texting rates are free floating and not attached to the contract plan and subject to change, unless you are under a specific text plan, where they charge a per month rate for said number of texts.

So, if you are not under a text plan, you will be subject to their change of rates for text messages and you have no discourse with which to complaign.

Nextel!


Fear the beep!

I have Virgin. Pay by the minute, and it's attached to my credit card. Whenever I am running low on minutes, it refills it in $15 increments till the next time. And the minutes are good for 90 days.

I pay about $60 a year.

Ie Sprint...

Well there you go. AT&T Wireless never charged for incoming text messages. And as for the text rates, in your contract it says that rates are subject to change with notice. Well it was on the first page of your January bill. If you had the 7 PM off peak option last year it went from $7 a month to $8.99 for a single line and $14 a month to $16.99 for Family Talk. My company is directly involved with Cingular and I've been working for them for 4 years, so I pretty much know Cingular inside and out.

You guys really live in cell phone stone age It's 0.01€ here with my plan. Usually it's around 5 cents or so. What do you guys pay for calls?

I'm on pay as you go T-Mobile 10p per txt and 12p per min talk.

No worrys at all with it.

What's most popular here is paying a monthly plan, like $40 for 450 minutes, free same network mobile to mobile and nights and weekends. That's a common plan a couple major carriers have or variations on. Data still hasn't really caught on here like it has over there. All the popular text devices are blips on the radar here while they are massive hits over there.

Well, to be honest, I have actually used cell phone internet exactly one time. Sure I played around but it's just so uncomfortable.

All the free WLAN spots that pop up everywhere will kill off UMTS and its brethren anyway.

That's probably true there, but this country is just so large and spread out that UMTS has a real market here. High speed Wireless data cards for laptops are pretty good sellers here

Your hard-on for Catherine Zeta-Jones is not a good reason to switch mobile carriers.

My girlfriend has cingular, we both hate it. When she came to visit, we were out and about, and just for kicks I tried calling her phone. I was holding her damn phone in my other hand and it didn't even pick up. And another time she sent me like six or seven txt messages, I got them a week later...

And don't even get me started on their "fewest dropped calls" bs.

I have Verizon. I pay the $5 a month for unlimited texts/pics/vids.

No problems.

Now it makes sense. My mom recently signed up for a new contract because she broke her phone, and they lied to her saying she couldn't just buy a pay-as-you-go phone. She signed up for a new contract just this last month. The new plan was supposed to be something like $39 for the main line, and $10 for each additional line. Instead we were charged $20 for the main line and $39 for each additional line.

Is there a 30 day grace period in which we can still cancel the stupid plan and switch to AT&T? When does AT&T finally take over Cingular? Will AT&T go back to the free received SMS deal?

At least AT&T will retain the great coverage network. I always get really good service, and I guess that's all you really need with a phone.