Need some help deciding between cingular and nextel

Hey all, I'm deciding between nextel and cingular for service plans. This is my first cell phone, so I'm fairly new to this all. I have used my mom's cell quite alot, she has verizon, which works well. MY dad has nextel, and says it works well for him, but not in large stores for some reason (ie walmart).

Before I consider cingular I need to know for sure is if cingular family plans start with 2 phones, or if I have to pay 20 per month extra to have 2 on the plan. If I have to pay extra per phone, then they're out of the picture.

I'm going with a plan with my brother, hence why I want a companion plan. Both nextel and cingular have similar plans for $50 a month (nextel- 600 anytime minutes, 250 direct connect minutes... vs ...cingular- 600 anytime, rollover), I'm leaning towards cingular because rollover could be huge.

I'm a college student, I live in fort wayne IN for ~4 months a year, but I'm in muncie IN for the other 8 months. So, I need a carrier with good towers everywhere.


Any comments on my situation (info on the cingular family plan phone situation would be MUCH appreciated as they're vague on their site).

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well have u decided which fone ur are planning to get for both services?

Well, I'm not completely sure.

My ad has a nextel because his company uses them, and they told him that he can buy phones, even for family, at a good discount.

cingular I am clueless about.


I'm leaning more towards nextel, but cingular looks very tempting, so I'm in a predicament.

if i remember right, for 2 phones its something like $16-$20 on the bill

Dang, so it's 16-20 to have 2 phones on the companion plan? well if that's true then it looks like nextel is where I'm goin for sure :/

but I'm about to switch to Nextel because of the direct connect and free incoming calls. Everyone I know has nextel. But I have not had a problem one with Cinular.....Great service all around.

I was a Nextel customer for 3 years before switching to Cingular.

The main issue with me was coverage. And I was lured away with a fancy phone.

The Cingular deals are good, the coverage better.

But the real difference is customer service. I will leave Cingular the moment I my contract is up.

Cingular's customer service is amazingly bad. You'd think in a competitive market, they'd care whether their customers weren't driven onto these forums to warn the Unsuspecting away from Cingular.

Nextel's customer service was exemplary. Helpful, easy to get to, cooperative. They'll even call you up from time to time to see if you are happy with their service.

Contrast this with Cingular's poor voicemail system, with unhelpful staff (I've spoken with 3), and with inflexible and punitive policies.

I have never been treated as badly as by these people. So, resist the deals and the come-ons: If Nextel covers your area, go with them in a heartbeat and pity us poor devils still stuck with Cingular.

Originally posted by oleaginous
I was a Nextel customer for 3 years before switching to Cingular.

The main issue with me was coverage. And I was lured away with a fancy phone.

The Cingular deals are good, the coverage better.

But the real difference is customer service. I will leave Cingular the moment I my contract is up.

Cingular's customer service is amazingly bad. You'd think in a competitive market, they'd care whether their customers weren't driven onto these forums to warn the Unsuspecting away from Cingular.

I've had exactly the opposite experience with Cingular. On the few times I've needed to call Customer Service over the years I've always gotten a helpful, polite and knowlegable rep.

Originally posted by oleaginous
Nextel's customer service was exemplary. Helpful, easy to get to, cooperative. They'll even call you up from time to time to see if you are happy with their service.

Again, I've had exactly the opposite experience with Nextel. I manage the cell phones for our company and we've always run on Nextel for the Direct Connect feature - that was the ONLY reason we've stayed with Nextel. (Now that they actually have competition that policy is being reviewed) Over the last year and a half that I've been dealing with Nextel, they've over-charged our account, "forgotten" service credits and have flat-out lied to me. None of these occurances have been one-time issues either, all have happened at least twice and the overbilling was for six consecutive billing cycles.

The only times that Nextel calls us about our account is when they want to sell us more phones that we don't need. They have never called just to see if we're happy, if they had they'd have gotten an earful.

Originally posted by oleaginous
I have never been treated as badly as by these people. So, resist the deals and the come-ons: If Nextel covers your area, go with them in a heartbeat and pity us poor devils still stuck with Cingular.

If I had been treated as you have been by Cingular I'd switch too. That kind of service is unacceptable from any company. In my case though, it's Nextel who has provided the unacceptable service. I know that one company that we work with is strongly considering a Class Action lawsuit against Nextel for their questionable billing practices and service issues.

When our contract expires we will be looking at Sprint or Verizon and their new Push To Talk services to replace our Nextel account

I understand what you are saying. Like you, I can only testify from my own experience. Nextel's coverage area was insufficient for my needs and they were expensive, compared to AT&T and Cingular. I tried AT&T first, but never could get through to them to confirm my account. (Soon thereafter they put themselves up for sale) When I found a similar deal with better coverage from Cingular, I thought I had found a home. Then I got tangled up trying to pay them online and they have been unreasonable since that time. I tried to deal with them several times by phone: they were as bad a bureaucracy as I have encountered. So now, what can I do? It's a shame, too, because I liked the equipment and I thought the costs were reasonable. I'm just glad I hadn't gone on and expanded my relationship with them. I always pay my bills promptly and consequently do not pay service fees or penalties. Cingular however is predatory. I am thinking of complaining to the consumer protection division of my state's Attorney General.

Originally posted by oleaginous
I am thinking of complaining to the consumer protection division of my state's Attorney General.

You probably should, if they've been "predatory," document what happened and send a complaint to your AG or the Better Business Bureau.

You're absolutely right about only being able to testify from our own experience - I just wanted to make sure there was testimony from both sides.

Hope you have better luck with your next carrier!

nextel?! cingular?! LOL you'll get betta service if you use two empty lima bean cans and some string.

I have had Cingular here in Atlanta since they were Bellsouth Mobility, whisch is about 7 years now. Overall I have had a mixed reaction to them. Recently they have been starting to act like everyone else. At first I was mailing my bills into them every month about a week before the bill was due, then they started saying my checks were coming late so I started go in the store to pay so I could get a receipt. Now if I walk up to someone and say I wanna pay my bill they charge me $4. Ok, then when my dad passed away my mom took over his phone and was paying about $35 a month but was only using about 20 mins a month. I told her to close out her account since the contract was up and move over to my family talk plan with me and my wife. Cingular would not let her close mid month so she had to wait til the 20th to close. When she finally did close and we got her a new phone the dimwits at the store forgot to enter a PUK code so when I tried to put a lock code on their it wouldn't let me go any further without that puk code. After sitting on the phone for 20 mins someone finally gave me the code and life went on. Other than these silly little issues I have had a fairly decent experience with them, but I have had in the back of mind for a while now the thoughts of leaving them for someone else. Take it for what it's worth, everyone has problems with every company, that's life. All you can do is pick one and hope for the best.