Being dropped by Cingular - anything I can do?

my gf and I are both on the shared plan. we used her address to sign up, and have had all bills sent there. we have had no problems, until recently.
yesterday, she received the following letter."we have determined you live and use your phone in an area not directly served by Cingular's network"
"as part of our regular review of customer accounts, we have determined you live and use your phone in an area not directly served by Cingular's network.
"This situation occurs with less than one percent of the customers on Cingular's plans, but when it happens, the costs to Cingular greatly increases. That's why this type of usage is contrary to the terms of your rate plan."
"As a result, your Cingular service will be cancelled by April 14, 2006. Of course, Cingular will waive teh early termination fee. To maintain wireless service we recommend you select a wireless service provider who directly serves teh area where you do most of your calling. If you choose this option you may be able to keep your current phone number, and you will not have to pay an early termination fee to Cingular."
"We regret this situation has occurred and, though no one is at fault, it is important that you find an alternate carrier before April 14, 2006. If you don't, your service will be terminated with no further warning."
"Please contact us at 866-704-0181 during business hours Monday-Friday, 7 am-7pm EST; Saturday, 9am-6pm CST and reference keyword: "Off-Network"


any ideas?

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Howdy shatheid,

Well I fear that the letter pretty much *****s it out for you. One or both of you use the phone more than 51% of the time in an area that Cingular does not service directly on their own towers. (Meaning you are costing them more money than you are bring in).

So if they are willing to let you out of your contracts without paying the $150 to $175 or more per line, count it as a win for you. I would before I signed up with another carrier, get BOTH phone unlocked from the Cingular service (so you can use it with another GSM service in your native areas).

Then I would shop the local and national options for new cell phone service.

It might help if you listed the city or cities that you and your GF live in, so anyone with service suggestions can help you easier. With Number porting, whichever service you switch to, you MAY be able to keep your current ohone numbers. But if keeping the same number is not important to you, that will be one less hurdle you'll need to jump over.

thought so.
according to wirelessadvisor.com
my gf (philippi, wv (possibly 2 l's i forget)) and myself (new martinsville, wv) are covered by cingular.
she is moving back up here w/i less than a month after our contract is broken.

Originally Posted by shatheid

thought so.
according to wirelessadvisor.com
my gf (philippi, wv (possibly 2 l's i forget)) and myself (new martinsville, wv) are covered by cingular.
she is moving back up here w/i less than a month after our contract is broken.

According to Cingular's web site, neither areas are covered by Cingular. I plugged in the ZIP codes for both of those towns, and got the following message both times:

"There is a problem with your request:

* We are expanding our coverage every day but unfortunately this is one of the few areas we haven't reached yet. Please check back soon. If you think you may have entered the wrong ZIP, please re-enter and try again. "

If you want to stay with a GSM service try Cellular One (www.celloneusa.com) or maybe T-Mobile (www.t-mobile.com) although the coverage in both areas is shown as "Roaming" on T-Mobile's web site. On the CDMA side, Sprint offers no coverage in your area, but you can get a Verizon plan.

Wow.

I've been looking at coverage maps for only a few minutes, but it seems as if large ares of West Virginia are not covered by any carrier.

Have you thought about a satellite phone?

ya, large parts arent covered.
soon (w/i a month) she will moving up to wheeling, wv since she will be finished with school. wheeling is a fairly large (relatively speaking) area and should have a wide variety of services

i thought i looked at the cingular site before..guess not.
anyways,

mind a quick explanation on the difference between cdma or gsm? im at work else id do it myself :/ (pros/cons maybe?)

also...this cingular plan was the first plan ive ever signed, how involved is switching? new phone? unlock phone? etc?
just the upfront costs scare me a bit to have to pay em all again.

CDMA usually has better rural coverage, one reason being that CDMA towers can transmit further than GSM towers. The advantage of GSM is being able to store your contacts on the SIM and it's really easy to switch to any unlocked phone without even calling the provider. If I went and bought a new CDMA phone for my Sprint service, I'd have to call them with the ESN (electronic serial number) and register the phone with them, then wait up to 4 hours for the transfer to complete. The phone would have to also be Sprint-branded, no unlocked phones on a CDMA network.

I like CDMA service, and being able to roam on other CDMA networks when Sprint is unavailable. I feel like I am very well covered in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama since Sprint has roaming agreements with Verizon and Alltel, and I can go just about anywhere and have some kind of reception (I rarely roam in the city but I do when I travel).

GSM's big advantages are for one, wider phone selection, phones with 900mhz or 1800mhz GSM bands can be used practically anywhere in the world (haha no GSM in Korea I hear! I read the Koreans make a killing on tourists by leasing CDMA phones to them during their visit! $$$)

Umm, honestly I am not a big advocate of GSM, though I occasionally wish I could just go out and buy any unlocked phone I wanted, since Sprint's selection is somewhat limited (can't activate an unlocked CDMA phone). CDMA providers dominate rural areas, and so that's probably going to be a good choice for you in West Virginia.

well...we called cingular today and made a change of address to where she's moving..it is in their regular area.
they are supposed to call back within 48 hours and let us know if we can keep our service.
if not, i started looking at verizon which seems to have some ok deals...we certainly dont use our 1000 minutes a month (have like 3k saved up) so, maybe this will save us some money in the long run.

Originally Posted by shatheid

if not, i started looking at verizon which seems to have some ok deals...we certainly dont use our 1000 minutes a month (have like 3k saved up) so, maybe this will save us some money in the long run.

No matter who you choose to go with, make sure you know their return policy and how long you have to send everything back in case it doesn't work for you. I went and looked at some coverage maps for WV and if I were you I'd plan a day trip as soon as I got my new phone to test the reception in every area I think I might possibly be visiting.

ya :/
my brothers been down here before with verizon and all worked well.

Lucky you that Cingular let you go,,they offer lousy service anyway,,All Cingular GSM Phones are unlock, thats the only good thing about Cingular.

Originally Posted by itsjulio

Lucky you that Cingular let you go,,they offer lousy service anyway,,All Cingular GSM Phones are unlock, thats the only good thing about Cingular.

You mean unlockable, right? They certainly do not come from Cingular unlocked. There are, however, some independent agents (resellers) who sell unlocked GSM phones with new service plans.

In the New York area all Cingular phones are never lock, it has been my exp.GSM like the V400,V600

why would cingular ship locked phones to every single customer, except ones residing in new york?

perhaps you are confused about what unlocked means? use the search link in my signature to learn about unlocking.

Originally Posted by itsjulio

In the New York area all Cingular phones are never lock, it has been my exp.GSM like the V400,V600

The V400, V600, and I think the pink V3 are the only unlocked ones that were shipped unlocked. If you have the pink cingular V3 you'll notice that "cingular" is missing from the battery cover. I only know about motorolas, so I can't say about the other brands.