Cingular Rings Up Far More New Subscribers Than Expected

[Kris Kumar]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.yahoo.com/s/ibd/20060419/bs_ibd_ibd/2006419tech' target='_blank'>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ibd/20060419/bs_ibd_ibd/2006419tech</a><br /><br /></div><i>"AT&amp;T's strategy to acquire full ownership of Cingular Wireless looked pretty good Wednesday, as the nation's biggest mobile carrier beat expectations on subscriber growth and swung to a profit in the first quarter. AT&amp;T and BellSouth co-own Cingular, which says it added 1.7 million customers last quarter. In early March, AT&amp;T agreed to buy BellSouth, mainly to get control of BellSouth's 40% stake in Cingular. The $67 billion deal is expected to close by year-end. Cingular reported first-quarter net income of $354 million compared with a loss of $240 million in the year-earlier period. Revenue rose 9.1% to $9 billion. Cingular's net customer adds topped analyst consensus estimates of 1.1 million. It ended the quarter with 55.8 million customers."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/images/Cingular.jpg" alt="User submitted image" title="User submitted image"/> <br /><br />Cingular has reported strong <a href="http://cingular.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=press_releases&amp;item=1505">first-quarter results</a> based on customer additions, growth of data ARPU and lower churn. Our readers will remember that in early 2005, after the merger with AT&amp;T Wireless, Cingular was having a tough time retaining customers and the customer satisfaction ratings were not the best. Looks like that is all a thing of the past, Cingular has reported the overall monthly subscriber churn of 1.9 percent, its lowest ever. Cingular also reported 1.7 million net customer additions. Cingular's data ARPU was $5.22, up more than 41 percent over the year-ago first quarter. I joined the Cingular network in December of 2005 and have been pretty happy with the network performance. Did you recently switch over to Cingular? How is it working out for you?

[randalllewis]

I've been with Sprint, Verizon, the old ATT, and now Cingular over the years. I have been happiest with Cingular. Old ATT was awful, even here in the Puget Sound area that was their base, there were giant gaps in coverage. I remember well my phone not working inside of any large stores or malls. Sprint was one billing disaster after another. Verizon is a very long and unpleasant story. Cingular has great coverage in this area and anywhere else I've gone. All of our phones- my beloved 2125 Smartphone (which is a work tool) and my Moto V551 and my wife's cheapy Nokia have signals wherever we need them, I've had no issues with their customer service (one incident when the Edge service on my 551 wasn't set up correctly, was fixed propmptly and correctly) and I love the rollover feature.

I am not surprised Cingular is doing well. I just cringe that the new "ATT" plans to change the name when they take control. Cingular is one of the nonsense words that seems to be the trend for business these days but "ATT" is not exactly a brand name that brings positive thoughts to my mind.

[Rocco Augusto]

they plan on changing the "branding" that doesn't necessarily mean the name. They could just turn everything blue and cancle the orange. they could take a page out of sextel's book... i mean sprint and nextel's book and jus have the company be called Cingular, Together with ATT or something retarded like that.

they might just leave it alone. 1.7 new subscribers in one quarter... i really wouldnt feel comfortable changing around a profitable brand name such as cingular ;)

[brianchris]

My wife and I were on ATTWS for quite awhile, but left about two years ago. In Medford, OR (which was an ATTWS market) covergae was horrible. We switched to US Cellular just under 2 years ago for better coverarge, and US Cellular had it! But, they had poor handset selection (just a couple features more than a wireless abacus), with no hope of a Windows mobile phone anytime soon.

Fast forward to Cingular releasing the 2125 and the 8125, and both my wife and I took a gamble and payed early termination to get those devices on Cingular (I got the 8125, my wife the 2125). The gamble paid off! We now have GREAT devices with GREAT covereage wherever we go...we are evry happy!

[Kris Kumar]

I am not too concerned by the AT&amp;T takeover of Cingular. Name change also will not concern me much.

What worried me back when Cingular took over AT&amp;T Wireless was that there were two networks, two billing systems, two customer supports and so on. Bringing them together under one umbrella is a tough process, even though both were GSM based. Now that the consolidation is over, AT&amp;T is planning on taking over Cingular completely and will not be merging any other wireless business of their own (I don't think they have any now, am I wrong?) with Cingular, so there should not be any chaos.

There is always the possibility of big company being focused in too many areas (wireless, land line, corporate networks, residential high speed) and messing things up. Hopefully the Cingular management team will remain the same. They have been doing a good job.

After the take over I would like to see certain things like one bill for residential and wireless bills, and possibly discounts for having multiple services. ;-)

[Rocco Augusto]

After the take over I would like to see certain things like one bill for residential and wireless bills, and possibly discounts for having multiple services. ;-)

and the most important things, more smartphones

[jfreiman]

...Now that the consolidation is over, AT&amp;T is planning on taking over Cingular completely and will not be merging any other wireless business of their own (I don't think they have any now, am I wrong?) with Cingular, so there should not be any chaos.
...

The two companies are now "one" company, but at least in California they still have two distinct networks -- Orange and Blue.

The last I heard was that they were hoping to have California's networks merged by 'Summer'. I haven't heard anything lately about it, but I hope they are still on schedule.

I hope that the merge continues on schedule so that there is more seamless transfers between towers and fewer times a day when my 2125 looses the carrier.

[OSUKid7]

I've been on a family plan with Cingular since the end of November. Before that, we were with T-Mobile for a year and a half (iirc), and before that, Verizon Wireless. Cingular has worked out the best overall. We changed mainly because of coverage issues in my dorm room at college (Cingular coverage is great, T-Mobile dropped out a lot), but also because Cingular had WM Smartphones, while T-Mobile did not (at the time).

We actually broke our contract with VZW a couple years ago, but were reimbursed the fees. Coverage was absolutely terrible in our house with VZW. The map said coverage should have been okay, but time after time, we experienced dropped calls. I'd say half of our calls from in or around our house were dropped. We eventually called VZW and convinced them to send a technician out and test. The result? VZW found that coverage was unusually low in our area.

I know tons of people who live by VZW because of its great coverage area, but that doesn't matter much if you're getting that many dropped calls. I'd be willing to try them again sometime, but not unless I'm convinced coverage around my house is good. I'm also enjoying GSM much more than CDMA.

So in conclusion, we're staying with Cingular for now. No cell phone plan is cheap, but at least with Cingular, it's worth the cost.