[Mike Temporale]

http://theinq.net/?article=24491

"It seems that Cingular has a massive US-wide problem with their network, or in their parlance, a feature. This new feature, one that they don't charge extra for, yet, makes it impossible for you to get inbound calls, they just drop to voice mail. ...Well, Cingular, when confronted admitted it has a problem, and if you spend an hour on the phone with them, it can correct this one, manually, one at a time. Sigh. It won't tell you about it unless you call first, it is nationwide and from what I gather, irregular. If you are on Cingular, I would heartily recommend you check if your inbound works a couple of times a day until it comes clean on this one, if it ever does."

Well, this is the first I've heard of anyone complaining about network problems. Maybe it's just an isolated incident? Is anyone else having network problems with Cingular?

[Mike Temporale]

http://theinq.net/?article=24491

"It seems that Cingular has a massive US-wide problem with their network, or in their parlance, a feature. This new feature, one that they don't charge extra for, yet, makes it impossible for you to get inbound calls, they just drop to voice mail. ...Well, Cingular, when confronted admitted it has a problem, and if you spend an hour on the phone with them, it can correct this one, manually, one at a time. Sigh. It won't tell you about it unless you call first, it is nationwide and from what I gather, irregular. If you are on Cingular, I would heartily recommend you check if your inbound works a couple of times a day until it comes clean on this one, if it ever does."

Well, this is the first I've heard of anyone complaining about network problems. Maybe it's just an isolated incident? Is anyone else having network problems with Cingular?

[Jerry Raia]

This happens with all carriers. I remember it happening when I was on Verizon from time to time. If it is something that can be corrected as the author states then that is another matter.

[edgar]

My cingular (blue/AT&T) is rock solid. I don't know if Washington DC just has good service or what. I was Cell One previously here about 12 years ago, when AT&T bought them it stayed solid.

No problems here at all except around the CIA and NSA Headquaters - gee is that a coincidence?

[stevew]

I'm in Florida and I couldn't surf the internet with GPRS but no problem with calls.

[c230-k]

If anyone's even paying attention, Cingular service in the Southern California region is awful. You have to dial into voicemail multiple times a day to check and see if you've recieved a call or not. You can have 5 bars and the phone won't even ring and then a hour later a voicemail indicator comes one saying you have a voicemail. The service sucks here and Cingular is making excuses and wont admit that they have network issues here. I have 6 friends that all have Cingular service and are saying the say thing. Sometimes,my friends and I are standing around and try to call one another and the phones don't even ring, just to voicemail it goes. We are frustrated at their lies and cover ups of the service issues. I will now be complaining to the California PUC and the FCC and make a formal complaint on the service condition that they are charging me $39.99 and the service at times can't even be used to recieve calls. :evil: I have complained multiple times and have been given no credit for my troubles. They are going to loose customers if they don't do something with their network. Which by the way is Tmobile, as they had to sell the spectrum to Tmobile prior to the meger of At&t due to FCC requirements and have a agreement for 4 years to buy wholesale minutes from Tmobile and let cingular users use the system.

[Jerry Raia]

I must be living in an alternate universe. I fly up and down the California coast constantly and my Cingular service is no different than my Verizon service was. I miss calls at the same rate that was the case with Verizon. Should it be better? Of course. Is it worse? Not in my experience so far.

[Kris Kumar]

I have missed calls on T-Mobile network. :-( The cell phone shows 4 or 5 bars and there is no GPRS activity. Yet the phone does not ring and it goes straight to voicemail and then I get the SMS message, informing me that there is a voicemail. :roll: And I do not live in a big city.

[PeterLake]

Is there any reliability to anecdotal stories such as these? The author even starts his story in the first-person personal: "CINGULAR IS A SINGULARLY AWFUL phone company, but then again, I am a little biased." Note to author: expressly acknowledging your bias does not make your article more objective.

If I were to act on this news item, I can see myself switching to another carrier only to read and perhaps experience the same sorts of problems.

Is there any hard data on the company with the best coverage and lowest drops? Is it broken down by geographic region -- or at least MY geographic region? Now that is something I would consider.

[surfer]

I've got a sister who is currently residing in the US and using Cingular and she does not have this problem in Flordia. I've have aswell called her and i've been calling from her phone several times and have never experienced this problem. Shes currently thinks that Cingular works better then her swedish operator called 'comviq'.

[nskgti]

Just a heads up...

This article on engadget has no official sources. It was posted because some customer service rep said they were having network issues. Internally at Cingular there are NO national issues on the network dash board..

Here in NYC, I haven't had any issues other than the rare (3 in 15 months) dropped call.