On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 17:25:57 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
>> In article <[email protected]>,
>> SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> Consumers have wised up when it comes to choosing carriers. They no
>>> longer look only at price and features, and they now understand the huge
>>> differences in quality of coverage. In my area, the San Francisco Bay
>>> Area, Verizon is so far ahead of the other three carriers, that there is
>>> no competition when it comes to choosing a carrier based on coverage.
>>
>> And yet Navas, in the same geographical area, says otherwise. He says
>> Cingular is the best.
>>
>> Gee, who'd'a thunk it?
>
>Sorry, I go by all the independent surveys, which have very high sample
>sizes and extremely low margins of error.

What you actually do is make things up that are demonstrably wrong, as
in claims of coverage completely at odds with Verizon's own coverage
maps. (Oops.)

As for the surveys, they actually show relatively small differences that
are comparable to the margins of error.

>Navas goes by a sample of one,
>himself. Amusingly, not even Cingular itself claims a coverage
>advantage. They have the "fewest dropped calls" campaign, but they are
>very careful to never claim the widest coverage. Of course the "fewest
>dropped calls" claim has been proven to be untrue...

Really? Proof? Or just another made up claim?

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 14:10:41 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>... In my area, the San Francisco Bay
>Area, Verizon is so far ahead of the other three carriers, that there is
>no competition when it comes to choosing a carrier based on coverage.

In fact AT&T/Cingular generally has the best coverage in the San
Francisco Bay Area, although what really matters of course is actual
coverage in areas you actually care about -- "all generalizations are
false".

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Mon, 30 Apr 2007 11:57:38 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>... While the N95 will be great in Europe, the best coverage, for
>both voice and data, in the U.S., is on CDMA carriers, at least for now.

Actually GSM, although any such generalization is both silly and
meaningless -- what matters is actual coverage in the actual areas you
care about, which for me (not necessarily others) makes GSM a no-brainer
since CDMA coverage is significantly poorer.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

Kurt wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> "Elmo P. Shagnasty" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> In article <[email protected]>,
>> SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>> Mac fanatics don't care. They have the ability to stick their heads in
>>>> the sand and still breathe.
>>> If only the Mac fanatics buy the initial iPhone offering then it will be
>>> a spectacular failure.
>> Oh, I'm not so sure about that.
>>
>> It also depends on supply. If the supply is short, as I expect, then
>> Cingular would be a fool not to constrain the demand in some way.
>>
>> Regardless, there are plenty of the "faithful" who will pay any amount
>> of money for it.
>
> Let them do the beta testing.

That's my feeling too. It's like buying the first year of a new car.

Personally, my feeling on a PDA phone is that it will actually have to
replace my PDA. The first version of the iPhone lacks too much PDA
functionality. It's a combination iPod/World Phone/mini-web pad, but the
closed platform limits functionality too much. There's also the issue of
the phone. While the N95 will be great in Europe, the best coverage, for
both voice and data, in the U.S., is on CDMA carriers, at least for now.
Hopefully in a couple of years it'll all shake out, and a nice PDA phone
with GPS, 5 megapixel camera, WiFi and WiMax, will be $300.

In article <[email protected]>,
"Elmo P. Shagnasty" <[email protected]> wrote:

> In article <[email protected]>,
> SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > Mac fanatics don't care. They have the ability to stick their heads in
> > > the sand and still breathe.
> >
> > If only the Mac fanatics buy the initial iPhone offering then it will be
> > a spectacular failure.
>
> Oh, I'm not so sure about that.
>
> It also depends on supply. If the supply is short, as I expect, then
> Cingular would be a fool not to constrain the demand in some way.
>
> Regardless, there are plenty of the "faithful" who will pay any amount
> of money for it.

Let them do the beta testing.

--
To reply by email, remove the word "space"

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Kurt <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>> I bet Cingular does something like charge $599 for it and demand a 3
>>> year contract for the privilege.
>>>
>>> That's how you soak the "believers".
>>>
>>> Then come Christmas, it'll be back to business as usual--once they've
>>> soaked the "believers" who will pay anything for it.
>> No one should even consider one until at least the end of the year.
>> That's a given, just to see how service and hardware work out.
>
> Mac fanatics don't care. They have the ability to stick their heads in
> the sand and still breathe.

If only the Mac fanatics buy the initial iPhone offering then it will be
a spectacular failure.

Most Mac users are normal people, with the same distribution of early
adopters, and those that wait for the bugs and design compromises
(inevitable in the first version) to be worked out.

Personally, I want a Nokia N95. In six months, after the early adopters
overpay for it, it'll be not that much more than the high-end iPhone.

[Copied to alt.cellular.attws. Please post all alt.cellular.cingular
posts to alt.cellular.attws as well. The Cingular name is going away,
and alt.cellular.attws is the proper venue for posts regarding AT&T's
Wireless Service.]

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Consumers have wised up when it comes to choosing carriers. They no
>> longer look only at price and features, and they now understand the huge
>> differences in quality of coverage. In my area, the San Francisco Bay
>> Area, Verizon is so far ahead of the other three carriers, that there is
>> no competition when it comes to choosing a carrier based on coverage.
>
> And yet Navas, in the same geographical area, says otherwise. He says
> Cingular is the best.
>
> Gee, who'd'a thunk it?

Sorry, I go by all the independent surveys, which have very high sample
sizes and extremely low margins of error. Navas goes by a sample of one,
himself. Amusingly, not even Cingular itself claims a coverage
advantage. They have the "fewest dropped calls" campaign, but they are
very careful to never claim the widest coverage. Of course the "fewest
dropped calls" claim has been proven to be untrue, so you'd have thunk
that they may as well make up other claims as well as long as they're
fictionalizing!

You get three guesses as to who people believe, and the first two don't
count.

Todd Allcock wrote:
> At 29 Apr 2007 14:10:41 -0700 SMS wrote:
>
>> Consumers have wised up when it comes to choosing carriers. They no
>> longer look only at price and features, and they now understand the
>> huge differences in quality of coverage.
>
>
> And yet only 30% of cellular customers choose Verizon, the only carrier
> you deem worthy of choosing.

I was talking about in my area, the San Francisco Bay Area. As the
surveys show, in other areas the different carriers are not as disparate
in terms of coverage. Yes, Verizon does lead in almost every market, but
not by such a wide margin.

At 29 Apr 2007 14:10:41 -0700 SMS wrote:

> Consumers have wised up when it comes to choosing carriers. They no
> longer look only at price and features, and they now understand the
> huge differences in quality of coverage.


And yet only 30% of cellular customers choose Verizon, the only carrier
you deem worthy of choosing.

So, using your own argument, either 70% of cellular customers are idiots,
70% don't really care about coverage, or, just possibly, Verizon's
coverage isn't quite as superior to all others as you believe.
> Sprint and T-Mobile customers are pretty rare.

They must all be hiding from you then, because combined they hold roughly
35% of the cellular market.



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

jeremy wrote:

> I just don't get it. Why all this animosity against Sprint? When I think
> of all the Cingular problems, Sprint seems like a breath of fresh air.

Sprint's biggest problem is coverage. They have two strikes against
them. First they are PCS, which requires more towers than cellular to
achieve the same coverage area. Second, they entered the game later than
the cellular carriers, and weren't able to site all those towers before
local governments started regulating them.

On paper, Sprint looks great. But look at all the independent surveys of
the carriers. In my area, Sprint ranks as low as Cingular and T-Mobile.

Consumers have wised up when it comes to choosing carriers. They no
longer look only at price and features, and they now understand the huge
differences in quality of coverage. In my area, the San Francisco Bay
Area, Verizon is so far ahead of the other three carriers, that there is
no competition when it comes to choosing a carrier based on coverage.
The only reason anyone chooses Cingular is because they want GSM roaming
in Europe and Asia, or because they want a particular handset that isn't
available from Verizon. Other than that, the differences in coverage are
so significant, than Verizon is the carrier of choice. Sprint and
T-Mobile customers are pretty rare.


[Copied to alt.cellular.attws. Please post all alt.cellular.cingular
posts to alt.cellular.attws as well. The Cingular name is going away,
and alt.cellular.attws is the proper venue for posts regarding AT&T's
Wireless Service.]

On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:31:04 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>... Unfortunately, the legacy of these tri-band chip sets continues
>with phones like the V3xx which is GSM 800/1800/1900, and is virtually
>worthless in Europe and Asia, especially if you want to use a prepaid SIM.

In fact tri-band GSM 800/1800/1900 works quite well in most areas
outside of the USA.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 17:12:30 GMT, "jeremy" <[email protected]> wrote in
<2_LXh.9521$dM1.5089@trndny07>:

>I can't say whether Cingular's actions were legal, but they certainly seemed
>to be stupid. All I wanted was a fair shake--and the Cingular people
>treated me like I was a new customer, unentitled to any more discounts or
>perks.

Cingular give you a fair shake. What you wanted was special treatment.

>In any event, Sprint has proven themselves to be a very satisfactory
>replacement, and I doubt that I will ever go back to Cingular/ATT. Life
>goes on.

Then why are you still trolling here?

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Tue, 24 Apr 2007 17:33:06 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>As often happens in senior circles, she told her friends about
>10¢/minute prepaid on T-Mobile (which works fine in south Florida) and
>several of them also left AT&T/Cingular and they told their friends, and
>pretty soon the entire extended circle of friends had left for T-Mobile
>prepaid (the two 800 MHz carriers in south Florida were Cingular and
>AT&T and they had the lions share of customers because Voicestream and
>Verizon were stuck at the less desirable 1900 MHz and had no AMPS
>network).

The 1900 band is just as desirable as the 800 band.

>> Cingular COULD HAVE offered an attractive upgrade path. Perhaps free or
>> subsidized GSM phones and a monthly price for service that reflected the
>> loyalty of ATTWS' long-time customers. I wonder, if AT&T were still around,
>> would they have been so indifferent?
>
>They could have handled it better, that's for sure. ...

It actually handled it very well, as measured by any objective standard.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Tue, 24 Apr 2007 22:18:22 GMT, "jeremy" <[email protected]> wrote in
<OmvXh.4869$Zm.1317@trndny03>:

>"SMS" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>>
>> What they did with the $5 surcharge for continuing on TDMA to the bitter
>> end violated that promise, but other than that they could argue that
>> customers that switched to a a GSM plan, for whatever reason, were no
>> longer on the plan they signed up for. On the other hand, the technology
>> change was not something that those AT&T customers asked for, so you could
>> argue that Cingular should have kept them on plans with the same cost
>> structure even when they moved them to GSM.
>
>I agree completely, in principle. But, what is TDMA vs. GSM to the
>consumer? Merely a change in transmission protocol?

Actually a fundamentally different technology that was already being
phased out of ATTWS.

>Cingular COULD HAVE offered an attractive upgrade path.

It did, as good or better than any other carrier.

>Perhaps free or
>subsidized GSM phones

It did.

>and a monthly price for service that reflected the
>loyalty of ATTWS' long-time customers.

Makes no sense.

>I wonder, if AT&T were still around,
>would they have been so indifferent?

Almost certainly. ATTWS _isn't_ around, in part because it made bad
business deals. To be still be around it would have had to run its
business better.

>Anyway, Cingular pissed me off.

Clearly. But time now to move on and stop trolling here.

>Cingular didn't have to treat me as though I were a new customer, with no
>track record. They made that decision and millions of us left--and will
>probably never look back. I just cannot imagine how any business could turn
>away millions of customers, ...

It didn't do that. In fact it did a very good job of retaining ATTWS
customers.

>Sprint phoned me a few days ago, just to ask if everything was all right
>with their service. That speaks volumes about the way they view their
>customers, versus Cingular's view of them.

It's actually just a meaningless anecdote, and probably reflects how
Sprint is struggling compared to AT&T/Cingular.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Tue, 24 Apr 2007 10:20:29 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>Many of us are stuck if we want the most complete coverage for our area.
>In the SF Bay Area, Verizon has the best coverage by a wide margin, with
>Cingular a distant second, and Sprint and T-Mobile an even further
>distant third and fourth. I know that it some areas of the country this
>is not the situation, but that's the fact of the matter in my area.

In fact AT&T/Cingular has the best overall coverage in the San Francisco
Bay Area, followed by Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint (in that order).

That said, no one carrier has the best coverage in all areas, so you
should check coverage in areas you care about most before selecting a
carrier.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>