NFB: I hate my cell Phone and Service.

[Mixedpuppy]

It will cost me $175 to cancel my contract with AT&T(merged with Cingulair). My LG4020 phone connection gets a garbled interference for a couple seconds every once in a while and the phone's ear volume sucks.

What would you guys reccomend? I don't travel that much and I live in central Texas, 1 hour north of Austin.

Thanks in Advance.

[Tundrahog]

I have been with Cingular for over 12 years....used to be Cellular One back in the day.

Never had a problem with coverage area. I've been in back country many times and I still have coverage.

I think the type of phone does make a difference. I have used Ericsson for 10 years. Tried Motorola twice. Didn't like them at all. Bad reception, dropped calls, etc.... My friends and I had this discussion couple of weeks ago. Two of them had Motorola's, one a Razor can't remember the other. Two of us have Ericsson's. All of us were sitting at the bar and they(Motorola's) had no signal. Our phones(Ericsson's) had five bars and could place calls. All four of us have the same service(Cingular).

Just my .02

[raroZ28]

Had t-mobile and it sucked....

Switch to nextel, which is who I am with now.... Stick with them a few months and you'll appreciate your at&t. I don't know anyone who has nextel who is sincerely happy with it. Two way is great but the service sucks and the customer service is terrible.

[MN6WS6]

The first question I have is how long have you been a Cingular customer? If you've been with them for a while (defined as 2 years or more), then you might want to put your foot down. The last time I went into Cingular, I told them that I wanted 2 phones that were compatible with my car kit, on a family share plan, and I would sign the 2 year contract, but I was NOT paying for the phones or the activation (the phone at that time was $99 a piece and activation is like $30). They tried to give me some crap, but I told them that I had an account for (at that time) 6 years and was on auto-debit, so the least they could do is give me the phones. They did, but tried to sneak in the activation, which I ended up having to call customer service to get deleted from my bill. If you are a continuous customer and aren't asking for the latest and greatest phone for nothing, they'll usually do it, because they don't want to lose you. They don't make money on phones, never do, it's always the service. That's why they want that 2 year contract, because after that amount of time they have made their money back (and then some).

I can't really tell you what phone to get as I am not up to date on what they carry, and besides you kinda roll the dice anyway. I had a Nokia for 5 years, dropped it off a delivery truck, ran over it, dropped it in the toilet, in the sink, down stairs, broke the glass on the screen, and NOTHING killed that phone. But this new phone that my brother and mom have is a POS. I have a Motorola 270 which is probably close to 2.5 years old now, been through almost the same stuff, and still works great, but I have customers with V60's, 720's, and 710's that don't last a week. The best advice I can give you on that is to talk to a construction guy and find out what he has. If a construction guy can't kill it, it can't be killed

[94 formula]

I have a Motorola V220 and Cingular is my provider. I had great service until about a month ago when I started getting dropped calls and much worse reception. I ended up having to keep my phone on speaker phone all the time because even holding it near my head would cause it to loose service. It ended up being the phone needed replaced and I had a new one at my door two days later. Like everyone else said check the phone first. I have absolutely no complaints with cingular.

[DWS'95Bird]

are you truly with Cingular, or did the merger hand you off to another carrier as was my case?......AT&T suscribers here in the Carolinas were handed off to Suncom, which royally sux......I switched over to Cingular, and all is well once again in Mayberry

[lt14mla]

piece of advice...stay away from t-mobile

[Steel2686]

I was with Verizon and couldn't stand it. Talk about poor customer service. I went to Cingular and like it, but I believe it's my cheap phone that is cuasing all the dropped calls. I got one of the free phones. It's a Samsung. I goes from 5 bars to zero in a matter of seconds, even if I don't move. I'll look into a different phone before I write them off.

[Dave M]

I agree with the others. You're problems are probably the phones fault and not Cingluar's. I've been with Cingular or one of their preceeding companies for probably nearly a decade and I've got no complaints whatsoever. I've got an Ericsson Z500, not the most expensive phone in the world, and I get great coverage and sound quality. I think both were a little better when we were with AT&T wireless, but it's still good. I've never had to use customer service other than at their retail stores, but I've got no complaints.

[Red20170]

T-mobile is good if you live in the city or by major highways. Outside that service sux... T-mobile is also good if you need internet on the go.

[Coop '02Z]

Also, Cingular increased/improved their coverage with the AT&T merger since they took over the towers.

I would try a new phone.

[Christopherrr]

Try a new phone...

Cingular is a good company. My GF is rolling with them after leaving T-mobile.

I used to work for At&t wireless and I learned tons of things.

Verizon coverage is the greatest. I use Verizon, been with them for 5 years. We go camping and when all other phones don't work, mine does. I admit that their CS isn't all that great, but I much rather have a phone that works when I need it to.

T-mobile sucks a$$.

I'd try a new phone...I can praise Cingular...they are a good company. With the merger with At&t, coverage should be even greater than Verizon now.

[Mark B]

I had AT&T for 4 years & LOVED THEM!! When they were bought by cingular, it went down hill. Customer Service, dropped calls, billing, etc. I droped them. I now have a work cell that uses Verizon. They are probably the worst. I never get reception. But the phone is free for me... So I am just going to deal with it.

[Jeff_in_Atl]

I've been with Cingular for as long as I've owned a cell phone. Their coverage is absolutely the best of anyone's. At least across Georgia. They are the only service providers with coverage where my father-in-law lives In Hiawassee and My wife's family farm down in south Georgia.

Cingular's billing department has some serious problems. It' very difficult to change something. They never get it right. They've had to give credits to us several time and end the end it hasn't cost us anymore than it was supposed to except out time on the phone getting things corrected.

I had a StarTac TDMA phone for several years and never had any problem. About a year and a half ago I got a new phone that is GSM because Cingular changed their transmit/receive method to be more compatible with systems around the world. I bought a Motorola V400 phone. From day 1 I have hated it. On the old phone I would hear static every now and then. On the new one I have never heard static but it will fade out. I assume that Motorola decided that it would be better to have the phone fade out instead of the user hearing static. I hate it. I've had it replaced under warrantee once and right now it is screwed up. It won't charge because of something wrong with the phone. My daughter has the same phone and I swapped batteries and chargers and it still does it. It is out of warrantee and it won't keep a charge more than 5 minutes of use. I want to use it for target practice so bad I can't stand it. The problem is there isn't a phone available that I want. I use the SMS text message a lot and I want one with a full QWARTY key pad. There is an LG that has it but so far everything I have seen said it sucks. I want the Nokia 6822 http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/6822 but it is not available yet from Cingular or any other stores where I can get it with a service extension.

[Jeff02GAGT]

I have nextel. I have the I860 camera phone, and the it seems to be ok. The service is good, and I absolutely love the 2 way. I was actually thinking about switching to Cingular, but I am not sure now. My contract with Nextel is up in August, so I better figure out what I am going to do soon.

Just a note - Sprint isn't that great either. Although they're improving, and now with the merge between nextel and sprint, it may get better. I do know that T-JUNK (T-mobile) sucks. I've heard that from numerous people.

All in all, I like Nextel. Lately I have been getting more dropped calls which isn't making me happy. It also likes to tell you "that the system is busy". The thing with nextel is that nextel ONLY uses NEXTEL towers, they don't bounce off of others towers. Also, the older model phones worked much better than these new ones. I guess we'll see how much worse the service gets between now and the end of August. As of now, I am pretty pleased with Nextel, but I am sure that there is MUCH better out there!

Jeff