ATT allowing connection into Cingular?

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Tue, 13 Apr 2004
17:28:28 -0500, Wireless Guy <[email protected]>
wrote:

>CIngular and AT&T have been roaming partners for a while now, but would
>only use each other network only when really nessasary. Everytime a
>Cingular or an AT&T customer use another carrier cell site. It cost the
>company money that they have to pay out for the usage. AT&T and
>Cingular have quitely already ready begun opening up each others cell
>sites to each other in certian markets to improve coverage and to help
>prevent customers that may be touted to leave by other carrrier claming
>that thier will be utter chaos with the merger. This will improve
>service, not just in areas that they have low coverage. Mostly customer
>with both carriers will begin to see the coverage locally and
>Nationally change over the next few months.

Not here in Northern California. My unlocked Sony Ericsson Z600 (tri-band
world phone) works fine on Cingular 1900, but is barred from ATTWS 1900 (red
crossed circle in Select Network), in ZIP code 94404 at least, annoying
because I'm getting no Cingular signal but a decent ATTWS signal. My SIM
doesn't show ATTWS as a Preferred Net. This might be a unique provisioning
problem, but I doubt it, since this phone has successfully received at least
two OTA updates recently. (I'm checking this with Cingular, but haven't
gotten a meaningful response yet.)

--
Best regards,
John Navas <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/>

---

› See More: ATT allowing connection into Cingular?

Maybe its one way? AWS to Cingluar but not the reverse? I can literally
switch between the 2 now, here in South Florida.
Ben

"John Navas" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> [POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]
>
> In <[email protected]> on Tue, 13 Apr 2004
> 17:28:28 -0500, Wireless Guy
<[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> >CIngular and AT&T have been roaming partners for a while now, but would
> >only use each other network only when really nessasary. Everytime a
> >Cingular or an AT&T customer use another carrier cell site. It cost the
> >company money that they have to pay out for the usage. AT&T and
> >Cingular have quitely already ready begun opening up each others cell
> >sites to each other in certian markets to improve coverage and to help
> >prevent customers that may be touted to leave by other carrrier claming
> >that thier will be utter chaos with the merger. This will improve
> >service, not just in areas that they have low coverage. Mostly customer
> >with both carriers will begin to see the coverage locally and
> >Nationally change over the next few months.
>
> Not here in Northern California. My unlocked Sony Ericsson Z600 (tri-band
> world phone) works fine on Cingular 1900, but is barred from ATTWS 1900
(red
> crossed circle in Select Network), in ZIP code 94404 at least, annoying
> because I'm getting no Cingular signal but a decent ATTWS signal. My SIM
> doesn't show ATTWS as a Preferred Net. This might be a unique
provisioning
> problem, but I doubt it, since this phone has successfully received at
least
> two OTA updates recently. (I'm checking this with Cingular, but haven't
> gotten a meaningful response yet.)
>
> --
> Best regards,
> John Navas <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/>

>I'm getting no Cingular signal but a decent ATTWS signal.

Well, I had the opposite situation - no AT&T signal yet a pretty good to very
strong Cingular signal. What did I do?

My situation involved 2 locations, one was my home in Texas. I was on the
extreme edge of AT&T coverage with 1 bar of signal but only in y home office in
front of the North facing window - sometimes not that good.

The second location was here at my office in Lafayette, LA where there is a
Cingular tower just across our office property fence line.

I called AT&T and asked them about these two specific locations giving them the
Zip code's as well as the locations of the local Cingular towers.

Although I can't say 100%, but within a week of my call my AT&T GSM phone had
full bars here at my office in LA and when I went home to Texas the next time I
had full bars on my AT&T GSM phone there as well.

Sometimes it might help to complain.

On the other hand, I can't go to "Manual" system selection and select Cingular
manually in either location.

--
John S.
e-mail responses to - john at kiana dot net

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on 03 Aug 2004 14:34:10 GMT,
[email protected]pamfree (John S.) wrote:

>>I'm getting no Cingular signal but a decent ATTWS signal.
>
>Well, I had the opposite situation - no AT&T signal yet a pretty good to very
>strong Cingular signal. What did I do?
>
>My situation involved 2 locations, one was my home in Texas. I was on the
>extreme edge of AT&T coverage with 1 bar of signal but only in y home office in
>front of the North facing window - sometimes not that good.
>
>The second location was here at my office in Lafayette, LA where there is a
>Cingular tower just across our office property fence line.
>
>I called AT&T and asked them about these two specific locations giving them the
>Zip code's as well as the locations of the local Cingular towers.
>
>Although I can't say 100%, but within a week of my call my AT&T GSM phone had
>full bars here at my office in LA and when I went home to Texas the next time I
>had full bars on my AT&T GSM phone there as well.
>
>Sometimes it might help to complain.

Indeed. And as I wrote, I'm checking this with Cingular. A Network Trouble
Ticket was generated yesterday to have coverage checked in this location (a
reasonable first step). This is known to be a problem service area --
coverage is listed as "low" and "Medium" depending on the specific location.

My phone is GSM 1900 but not GSM 850. The problem there is that Cingular has
sold its 1900 spectrum to T-Mobile, and I doubt Cingular will now have much
interest in improving 1900 coverage. I may be out of luck with that phone
unless Cingular enables use of ATTWS 1900 coverage by Cingular subscribers.

Thus, to get good GSM coverage in this area, I may be forced to look into
replacement of my (relatively new and otherwise terrific) phone with one that
supports GSM 850. [sigh] But first I'm going to do some testing with an
ATTWS SIM, since another option is to switch from Cingular (where I'm
month-to-month) to ATTWS.

--
Best regards, HELP FOR CINGULAR GSM & SONY ERICSSON PHONES:
John Navas <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/#Cingular>

In article <d%[email protected]>,
John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:

> My phone is GSM 1900 but not GSM 850. The problem there is that Cingular has
> sold its 1900 spectrum to T-Mobile, and I doubt Cingular will now have much
> interest in improving 1900 coverage.

No, Cingular has not sold it! It has agreed to sell it after the AT&T
merger goes through. Get your facts straight.

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Tue, 03 Aug 2004
17:03:08 GMT, Robert <[email protected]> wrote:

>In article <d%[email protected]>,
> John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> My phone is GSM 1900 but not GSM 850. The problem there is that Cingular has
>> sold its 1900 spectrum to T-Mobile, and I doubt Cingular will now have much
>> interest in improving 1900 coverage.
>
>No, Cingular has not sold it! It has agreed to sell it after the AT&T
>merger goes through. Get your facts straight.

My facts are straight. To be precise
<http://www.t-mobile.com/company/pres...release100.asp>:

T-Mobile USA, Inc. ("T-Mobile USA"), the U.S. operating subsidiary of
T-Mobile International AG & Co. KG ("T-Mobile International"), the
mobile communications subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT)
("Deutsche Telekom"), today announced it HAS ENTERED INTO agreements
with Cingular Wireless LLC ("Cingular") to terminate their wireless
network sharing joint venture and for T-Mobile USA to acquire 100%
ownership of the shared networks in California and Nevada for $2.5
billion. [emphasis added]

In other words, the deal has been done.

The transaction is subject to the approval of Cingular's acquisition
of AT&T Wireless by U.S. anti-trust authorities and the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC), and other regulatory approvals.
Closing of the transaction is expected for the beginning of 2005.

In other words, the deal has contingencies, as is common.

That the deal hasn't yet closed doesn't invalidate what I wrote (as anyone
with real experience in this area knows).

--
Best regards, HELP FOR CINGULAR GSM & SONY ERICSSON PHONES:
John Navas <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/#Cingular>

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <d%[email protected]> on Tue, 03 Aug 2004 15:16:25 GMT,
John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:

>My phone is GSM 1900 but not GSM 850. The problem there is that Cingular has
>sold its 1900 spectrum to T-Mobile, and I doubt Cingular will now have much
>interest in improving 1900 coverage. I may be out of luck with that phone
>unless Cingular enables use of ATTWS 1900 coverage by Cingular subscribers.
>
>Thus, to get good GSM coverage in this area, I may be forced to look into
>replacement of my (relatively new and otherwise terrific) phone with one that
>supports GSM 850. [sigh] But first I'm going to do some testing with an
>ATTWS SIM, since another option is to switch from Cingular (where I'm
>month-to-month) to ATTWS.

Confirmed today that here in Northern California:

* ATTWS GSM subscribers may now roam freely on Cingular, giving them the
combined coverage of ATTWS and Cingular.

* Cingular subscribers are prohibited from roaming on ATTWS (which I frankly
think is a bit shabby).

That makes a big difference in (say) Foster City, where ATTWS has pretty good
coverage, whereas Cingular has a fairly large coverage hole south of 92, as
shown in my own tests of both carriers. Although there are other areas where
the reverse is true, likewise as shown in my own tests, ATTWS now avoids that
problem by allowing roaming on Cingular.

That difference, plus some nice incentives (discounted bundle of voice +
unlimited night&weekend + 7pm nights + data + free incoming messages + text
messages + picture messages), pushed me into switching from Cingular to ATTWS.
Since I have an unlocked phone and month-to-month service, the switch was
relatively easy, and my number should be ported by early tomorrow morning.
In the meantime, I'm already enjoying the benefits of ATTWS coverage in places
like Foster City, and the ability to roam on Cingular where ATTWS has holes.

--
Best regards, HELP FOR CINGULAR GSM & SONY ERICSSON PHONES:
John Navas <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/#Cingular>