Cingular Family Talk Plans...

How does Cingular Family Talk work? My understanding is that I would
choose one plan to share between the two lines that I currently have
and share those minutes between those two phones. The reason I asked
is because I recently added a second phone to my account and was
thinking I could save money if I upgraded to family talk and chose a
plan with more minutes to share between the two phones.

One concern I had was that if I upgraded to family talk, would there
be any degrade in quality of service on either line? Also, if I use
the number I have had the longest as my primary number, would I keep
the rollover minutes from that number for future use?

Does anyone have any feedback regarding Cingular's Family Talk?

Korey
[email protected]

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"Korey Smith" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> How does Cingular Family Talk work? My understanding is that I would
> choose one plan to share between the two lines that I currently have
> and share those minutes between those two phones.

Exactly.

The reason I asked
> is because I recently added a second phone to my account and was
> thinking I could save money if I upgraded to family talk and chose a
> plan with more minutes to share between the two phones.
>

Yes, you would save money because your overall average cost per min would
decrease (only if have a higher price family plan that allows you to add the
2nd line for $9.99).

> One concern I had was that if I upgraded to family talk, would there
> be any degrade in quality of service on either line?

No. The quality of service remains the same.

Also, if I use
> the number I have had the longest as my primary number, would I keep
> the rollover minutes from that number for future use?
>
Yes, you keep your rollover minutes. Be sure ask for the change to happen
at the beginning of billing cycle so all your most recent billing cycle
minutes rollover.

> Does anyone have any feedback regarding Cingular's Family Talk?
>
I have family plan and that's exactly how it works for me. If you don't
like, you can change at any time without changing your contract terms.


> Korey
> [email protected]
>

"Richie" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> > One concern I had was that if I upgraded to family talk, would there
> > be any degrade in quality of service on either line?
>
> No. The quality of service remains the same.

Unless changing forces you to switch from a TDMA plan to a GSM plan. That's
what's keeping me from switching to a family plan. Until GSM at least meets
the quality of TDMA I'm going to have to hold off. If you're already GSm
then there would be no change in quality.

What region of the country are you? I find it hard that believe that TDMA
would be better than GSM but I'm sure you know better than me for your
region.

Since Cingular and AT&T combined, many areas now have both GSM 1900MHz and
GSM 850MHz. I'm in San Diego, California, and I find that coverage is much
improved especially in residential areas.

You could get a GAIT phone that allows you to use both GSM and TDMA.

>
> Unless changing forces you to switch from a TDMA plan to a GSM plan.
> That's
> what's keeping me from switching to a family plan. Until GSM at least
> meets
> the quality of TDMA I'm going to have to hold off. If you're already GSm
> then there would be no change in quality.
>
>

> Unless TDMA at least meets the quality of TDMA

Huh? I guess this must vary by location. When we traded in our TDMA
phones for GSM five months ago, the quality improved by at least 100
percent.

On Fri, 06 May 2005 05:43:48 -0400, "Elmo P. Shagnasty"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>In article <[email protected]>,
> Dot <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> > Unless TDMA at least meets the quality of TDMA
>>
>> Huh? I guess this must vary by location.
>
>No question.
>
>Around here, I had TDMA until last June. After I switched to GSM, my
>real service area was much larger than it was previously with TDMA.

Before I had Cingular GSM, before I had Nextel, after I had Verizon,
while I still had t-mobile, I had AT&T TDMA.

It was fairly good for awhile but then started getting worse about 2
years ago.

I am happy enough with the current coverage here in the Poconos that I
got rid of the t-mobile and Nextel.

Nextel works pretty well around here EXCEPT where I need to use it. I
have been working on a project for 2 months and haven't been able to
use it at all, hence the move to Cingular.

"Elmo P. Shagnasty" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article
> <[email protected]>,
> "JohnF" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Until GSM at least meets
>> the quality of TDMA
>
> It is.

Uh.... no it isn't. When my Nokia 6160 TDMA phone has 2-3 bars and a Nokia
6190 GSM phone sitting next to it has "no service", I would disagree with
you.

"Richie" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> What region of the country are you? I find it hard that believe that TDMA
> would be better than GSM but I'm sure you know better than me for your
> region.
>
> Since Cingular and AT&T combined, many areas now have both GSM 1900MHz and
> GSM 850MHz. I'm in San Diego, California, and I find that coverage is
> much improved especially in residential areas.

This is is downtown Boise, ID. Not saying it's like this everywhere but I
keep seeing people on here making wild claims that GSM is better everywhere
I just want to make sure people thinking about switching know they may
potentially get worse service depebding on where they're at. The bad news is
that once you've made the switch Cingular won't let you go back.

GSM has NOT completely filled in the coverage that TDMA has everywhere.


Cingular: "More bars in more places..... and less in others".

In article
<[email protected]>,
"JohnF" <[email protected]> wrote:

> GSM has NOT completely filled in the coverage that TDMA has everywhere.
>
>
> Cingular: "More bars in more places..... and less in others".

Cingular has scrupulously followed the letter on their purchase
agreement for AT&T Wireless, and as of April 26, their commercials:
radio, TV and print no longer mention AT&T Wireless.

"JohnF" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> GSM has NOT completely filled in the coverage that TDMA has everywhere.

I am a communications consultant and as such deal a LOT with the various
Cellular Carriers. In the past 3 years my work has (almost) exclusivly been
with either AT&T Wireless or Cingular. Since October of 2003, I have not
been to an AWS site or a Cingular site that doesn't have GSM - unless it was
to install GSM. Since June of 2004, I have not been to a site that does not
have GSM - PERIOD.

Granted I have not been to ALL of the cell sites of ALL the carriers. But
the position of Cingular as of November of last year is that they have GSM
at all their sites. AWS had GSM at all of their sites in December of the
previous year.

Keep in mind that they are also adding a LOT of GSM only sites over the past
several years. They (AWS) also added a BIG site at Penn Station in NYC that
incuded TDMA, GSM, and even AMPS. That installation was completed in
December of 2003.

So, basically GSM has coverage EVERYWHERE that there is currently TDMA.

In article <[email protected]>,
"John S" <[email protected]> wrote:

>
> "JohnF" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
> > GSM has NOT completely filled in the coverage that TDMA has everywhere.
>
> I am a communications consultant and as such deal a LOT with the various
> Cellular Carriers. In the past 3 years my work has (almost) exclusivly been
> with either AT&T Wireless or Cingular. Since October of 2003, I have not
> been to an AWS site or a Cingular site that doesn't have GSM - unless it was
> to install GSM. Since June of 2004, I have not been to a site that does not
> have GSM - PERIOD.
>
> Granted I have not been to ALL of the cell sites of ALL the carriers. But
> the position of Cingular as of November of last year is that they have GSM
> at all their sites. AWS had GSM at all of their sites in December of the
> previous year.
>
> Keep in mind that they are also adding a LOT of GSM only sites over the past
> several years. They (AWS) also added a BIG site at Penn Station in NYC that
> incuded TDMA, GSM, and even AMPS. That installation was completed in
> December of 2003.
>
> So, basically GSM has coverage EVERYWHERE that there is currently TDMA.

And you work in what part of the country, that you've never been to
Montana?

"John S" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "JohnF" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
> > GSM has NOT completely filled in the coverage that TDMA has everywhere.
>
> I am a communications consultant and as such deal a LOT with the various
> Cellular Carriers. In the past 3 years my work has (almost) exclusivly
been
> with either AT&T Wireless or Cingular. Since October of 2003, I have not
> been to an AWS site or a Cingular site that doesn't have GSM - unless it
was
> to install GSM. Since June of 2004, I have not been to a site that does
not
> have GSM - PERIOD.
>
> Granted I have not been to ALL of the cell sites of ALL the carriers. But
> the position of Cingular as of November of last year is that they have GSM
> at all their sites. AWS had GSM at all of their sites in December of the
> previous year.
>
> Keep in mind that they are also adding a LOT of GSM only sites over the
past
> several years. They (AWS) also added a BIG site at Penn Station in NYC
that
> incuded TDMA, GSM, and even AMPS. That installation was completed in
> December of 2003.
>
> So, basically GSM has coverage EVERYWHERE that there is currently TDMA.

I'm not disputing that they may have put a GSM transmitter everywhere they
had a TDMA transmitter, what I'm disputing is the statement that a GSM
signal is available everywhere TDMA signal is. That, respectively, is just
not true.

There are a lot of GSM dead spots in my area where I get a solid TDMA
signal. I don't know how else to get the point across that their GSM
coverage does not match the existing TDMA coverage. It doesn't matter what
Cingular's position is on the matter. The fact is that there is NOT GSM
coverage everywhere there's TDMA coverage.

If Cingular continues to ignore problem areas they will continue to lose
customers. There are a lot of people in my area who switched to GSM and are
very dissatisfied with the service in compareson to what they had with TDMA.
Since Cingular won't let you go back to TDMA their only option is to switch
to a competetor.

I'm not saying this is the case in every market but you're doing potential
customers a dis-service by making claims that it's comparable everywhere.
It's not. Anecdotal evidence about how it's better in other areas does not
help prove the point in areas where it's not. I'm just pointing out that
people may want to validate the coverage in their own area before making a
commitment to something that *may* not meet their needs.

In article
<[email protected]>,
"JohnF" <[email protected]> wrote:

> There are a lot of GSM dead spots in my area where I get a solid TDMA
> signal. I don't know how else to get the point across that their GSM
> coverage does not match the existing TDMA coverage. It doesn't matter what
> Cingular's position is on the matter.

I love it when these cellular shills blindly parrot the corporate
propaganda. NOT

> The fact is that there is NOT GSM
> coverage everywhere there's TDMA coverage.