In the middle of September I upgraded from a Nokia 6120 to a Samsung
s307, and got my girlfriend a Nokia 3595. I never was able to get a
signal at my house in Bordentown City, NJ or at work in Mt Holly, NJ
with the old phone, so I wasn't surprised when I still had no signal
at home or work with the new phones.

Then in the middle of October, I noticed that I started getting a
really strong signal indoors - at work (Mt Holly, NJ) as well as at
home - on the Nokia as well as on the Samsung. It turned out to be
really *hard* to find a spot where I would get no signal. (I would
taunt my coworkers, also Cingular [TDMA] subscribers, by making
problem-free calls from deep within the building where they had no
signal at all.) At the same time, outgoing calls that I placed on
both phones started *requiring* 10 digits where 7 digits would suffice
before October - a small price to pay for the drastically increased
coverage I was getting.

Then in the middle of November I was no longer able to get a signal
indoors at home or at work on either the Nokia or the Samsung, and I'm
back to 7-digit dialing, and it's been that way ever since.

It's like Cingular started an experimental service and then pulled the
plug after a month. I mean, GSM has already been deployed in NJ,
hasn't it? It's not like they could roll it back without anyone
noticing. A call to their customer service dept reveals that they
don't guarantee coverage. That's nice, but don't provide a better
service and then yank it away without explanation. Searching this
newsgroup, I can't find anyone else describing the same experience
that I've had, and I think that more people than just me would have
noticed the 10-digit dialing requirement bit, if not the increased
signal-strength bit. I'm just looking for an explanation like "One of
Cingular's [whatever] went offline [whenever] affecting [whatever]
until [whenever]". It's frustrating that Cingular doesn't provide
more information about things going on that affect service. What the
heck happened?



See More: Cingular coverage in Bordentown and Mt Holly, NJ area