Re: Anyone come to Cingular from Sprint?

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
> Did anyone here move recently to Cingular from Sprint?

I just switched voer about two weeks ago. Haven't looked back yet
(except I HAVE been waiting with dread for that final Sprint bill).


> If so, how would you compare the two?

1. Coverage is better with Cingular, at least in NJ. Here, Sprint USED
to be a consistent 1 to 2 bars just about everywhere, wth decent call
quality, but lately things have gone WAY downhill and deadspots are
starting to become very frequent. Cingular USED to have very bad here,
but using a Motorola RAZR, I've been frequently getting 3 to 5 bars
everywhere I've gone.

2. Cingular just revamped the account access website, and it includes
call details for the CURRENT billing cycle, listing all calls made and
received that haven't been billed yet. It's a level of detail that
Sprint never could give. HOWEVER, The minute usage summary portion of
the site is usually about 48 hours behind, whereas Sprint's usage
summary was almost always up-to-the-minute.

3. Bills are more detailed. The call detail lists the numbers of
incoming as well as outgoing calls. Sprint never would do this for me,
always citing "privacy reasons." Hell if they were THAT concerned about
privacy, then they shouldn't be offering Caller ID.

4. Bluetooth phones that AREN'T crippled. If you want OBEX push on your
bluetooth phone, the Cingular handsets will do that. If you want DUN,
that's offered too. All of the profiles are there and aren't hindered
like on Verizon or Sprint, and there is a greater selection of bluetooth
capable phones as well.

5. You have 30 days to try out the service, instead of 14 like on Sprint.

6. Finally, customer service IS better at Cingular than Sprint. Every
single rep and agent I've spoken to at Cingular was helpful, and seemed
to have have a genuine interest in wanting to help. Not all of them
were fully knowledgeable, but the ones that weren't knowledgeable about
something were willing to admit it and escalate the issue to someone who
DID know the answer. This is a stark contrast from being a fed what may
be a BS answer if the rep isn't certain, as often happens on Sprint.

I even had a situation where I had to exchange my phone; the first
Motorola RAZR I tried out ended up introducing static into the call once
it got warmed up a bit in the middle of a call. The defective phone was
swapped out with another new phone on the spot, in store and without any
fuss. The replacement phone works wonderfully.


There are some drawbacks though:

1. First and most obvious, your old CDMA phone won't work on Cingular.
That means a new phone and most likely new accessories.

2. No unlimited text messaging. There IS a 1,000 text message tier at
the same $10 price point as Sprint's unlimited tier. 1,000 might be
good for most (and is more than enough for me), but it's still not
unlimited, if that sort of thing bothers you.

3. Unlimited data plan is $5 more expensive. However it doesnt' appear
that they freak out as much about tethering the phone to your laptop.

4. The base plan is $5 more expensive than the base plan on Sprint, but
does offer 150 more anytime minutes.

5. There's just something about the blue and orange color scheme that
really irks me. Though it's still way better than the Yellow and Black
color scheme that Sprint intends to adopt once the merger with Nextel is
complete.


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