AT&T Wireless Replacing Phones Due To New GSM 850 Coverage

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.engadget.com/entry/5326780577844212/' target='_blank'>http://www.engadget.com/entry/5326780577844212/</a><br /><br /></div>"Attention AT&amp;T Wireless customers: your phone is about to become obsolete. If you own one of the cellphones listed below and live in the New York metropolitan area, Northern New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Las Vegas, or Seattle, there’s a good chance that AT&amp;T doesn’t want you to use it much longer."<br /><br />Peter Rojas, in his new job at <a href="http://www.engadget.com/">Engadget</a>, has written up an excellent article summarizing AT&amp;T's troubles in their network transition. First off, TDMA is slowly getting phased out of their network, so its coverage is likely to slowly shrink. Second, perhaps half of the GSM phones they've been selling all this time <i>are not compatible</i> with wide new swaths of their network, which run at 800MHz ("<a href="http://www.phonescoop.com/glossary/term.php?gid=115">GSM 850</a>"). This includes the Siemens SX56, the Sony Ericsson T68i, and even the Motorola MPx200 Smartphone. Therefore, at the current moment, Pocket PC Phone users and Smartphone users are out of luck -- they won't be able to access most of AT&amp;T's new coverage. AT&amp;T has a handset trading program, but the replacements seem to be strictly average at best. Nice going, AT&amp;T. :?<br /><br />Worse, I don't know of a Pocket PC Phone that even <i>supports</i> GSM 850 right now. :| The Motorola MPx is eventually supposed to be available in two versions: an 800/1800/1900 (supporting GSM 850) and a 900/1800/1900 (supporting European bands), and the rumored <a href="http://www.bargainpda.com/default.asp?newsID=1889">iPAQ 6000</a> series might have quadband (800/900/1800/1900), but I've heard no official confirmation on that. What I <i>really</i> want to know is why carriers and handset manufacturers can't get their act together and just make all of their phones quadband. :roll:

[James Fee]

Makes me feel all the better leaving this mess this weekend for Verizon. No cool Motorola phone, but the service at least here in the west for AT&T is so bad, I can't stay.

[don dre]

I left for T-mobile back in June of last year and haven;t looked back. It's amazing to have a company now that seems to know what a customer is. And low and behold, they actually sent me a letter saying that they ahd been workingon towers in my area and to my surprise, I actually noticed an improvement in coverage area. It's sad what has happened to ATTWS, they used to be a decent carrier. One can only hope that Cingular will keep their networks and fir their mgmt.

[foldedspace]

It would be nice to be able to buy one phone that was portable between all carriers. Now that it's easier to switch, I'd be surprised if that doesn't become reality.

[Ed Hansberry]

What I really want to know is why carriers and handset manufacturers can't get their act together and just make all of their phones quadband. :roll:
What I want to know is why are there so many bands? Why can't carriers just get together and use one low and one high band instead of a few of each? :confused totally:

[manywhere]

It would be nice to be able to buy one phone that was portable between all carriers. Now that it's easier to switch, I'd be surprised if that doesn't become reality.Not if the government/FCC makes a law/rule prohibiting operators from tieing phones to an subscription. We've had this since GSM was young and nowadays, people are switching operators as "often" as socks (ok, maybe not that often... :lol: ). But, the downside is that the phones become more or less expensive but the phone bills should at least be cheaper...

[jonathanchoo]

A few weeks ago I found my old StarTAC 85 bought in 1997. Inserted a spare prepaid SIM card (still in full credit card size) and it worked! Ah...the beauty of European mobile standardisation...

[manywhere]

What I really want to know is why carriers and handset manufacturers can't get their act together and just make all of their phones quadband. :roll:
What I want to know is why are there so many bands? Why can't carriers just get together and use one low and one high band instead of a few of each? :confused totally:Simple answer: US Defense Forces. More complicated: FCC regulated frequency bands reserved for government agencies. It should be listed in a "Info Porn"-section in an old Wired issue... now where is that issue? *searches*

[anthonymoody]

This doesn't surprise me one bit. ATT sucks IMO. Completely. I left them 2+ years ago as a result of one of the biggest nightmare billing fiascos I've ever had the misfortuned of being a part of. It rose all the way to then Chairman C. Michael Armstrong's office. His office made a feeble effort to make things right with me, but it was way too little, way too late. I switched to TMo (then Voicestream) and have been a super happy camper ever since. I said it then and I'll say it now: I will never again spend one red cent with ATT for the rest of my life.

This nonsense about the handsets is not remotely surprising to me given what a POS organization they are.

TM

[urologyhealth]

Is this some hysteria about devices becoming obsolete? My understanding from ATT is the 850 is an overlay (to improve indoor reception) and 1900 will remain intact and functioning and not be eliminated.

What is so great on TMobile in terms of coverage and reception?

[Abba Zabba]

I have both ATTWS and TMo . 2 Nights ago I receved an sms from ATTWS stating that they're going to send me an "upgrade" to replace my t68i. The replacement, a T226...right, what an "upgrade" :roll:

I think it's time to cancel ATTWS and just get a second line with TMo.

[Janak Parekh]

What I want to know is why are there so many bands? Why can't carriers just get together and use one low and one high band instead of a few of each? :confused totally:Simple answer: US Defense Forces. More complicated: FCC regulated frequency bands reserved for government agencies. It should be listed in a "Info Porn"-section in an old Wired issue... now where is that issue? *searches*
If I remember correctly, the US military already reserved 900/1800 years and years ago for their use. The GSM association apparently ignored this and allocated 900/1800 anyway for European use, so we here in the US are forced to use different bands. One isn't really enough to handle three or four providers in the GSM space, so we've got two.

Oh, and it will only get worse. 2100MHz is being allocated in Europe for WCDMA, and they're eyeing the ~ 700MHz frequencies here in the US for 3G as well. The fact of the matter is, the richer the technology and the greater the number of users, the greater amount of frequency spectrum that will be needed. Where are those software radios when we need them? ;)

Is this some hysteria about devices becoming obsolete? My understanding from ATT is the 850 is an overlay (to improve indoor reception) and 1900 will remain intact and functioning and not be eliminated.
Only partially correct. There are lots of areas where AT&T only owns 800MHz licenses. Travel to those areas and you're not going to get any signal or a weak signal at best. As AT&T continues to convert their TDMA network, you'll find that about 50%+ of their network will be GSM 850 and won't work with the 1900-only or 900/1800/1900 phones.

--janak

[Abba Zabba]

I have both ATTWS and TMo . 2 Nights ago I receved an sms from ATTWS stating that they're going to send me an "upgrade" to replace my t68i. The replacement, a T226...right, what an "upgrade" :roll:

I think it's time to cancel ATTWS and just get a second line with TMo.

[rbrome]

What I really want to know is why carriers and handset manufacturers can't get their act together and just make all of their phones quadband. :roll:
What I want to know is why are there so many bands? Why can't carriers just get together and use one low and one high band instead of a few of each? :confused totally:

It's not the carriers - they have zero say in the matter. It's the FCC, and the equivalent organizations in other countries. And really, it's nobody's "fault". It's not easy coordinating radio spectrum worldwide.

When the world decided it needed mobile phones, the FCC, etc. had to find radio waves to set aside for it. That meant "moving" other types of radios out of part of the spectrum. That meant dealing with private and/or public oarganizations using that spectrum, and replacing every device made to use those frequencies. That's not easy or cheap. So the FCC found a part of the airwaves where it was easiest/cheapest to do this, and did it.

It would have been nice to pick the same frequencies as Europe, but it just wasn't possible. The options were things like moving television (replacing every TV in America) or moving public service radio - what you local police and fire department use to dispatch someone to save your life. Fortunately, they found frequencies that were used for less-important things.

THAT's why we have so many bands. Frankly, I'm amazed we have only four bands. And in fact, we have more than that. Russia has the 450 band, and Korea and Japan have some extra other bands.

Plus the new 3G services in Europe use the new 2100 band, and we'll soon have 2100 and 1700 bands here in the US, also for 3G. They're moving all kinds of things to make that happen, including certain military stuff. It's costing megabucks to replace all the equipment, but they're doing it. Unfortunately, once again it won't be quite the same bands as Europe - that just wasn't possible. Our 2100 band will overlap with Europe's, but not 100%.

There's also the new 700 band in the U.S., which comes from eliminating UHF TV, but it doesn't look like that will be used for phones (it could, but no major carriers bid in the first auction).

[merlin]

I just got mine from AT&T, the T226 to replace my T68i.
No Bluetooth!!! So I can't use my BT headset or transfer picture files to the phone :( . It looks like a pretty cheap phone too!
I'm waiting for a new smartphone with a camera, possibly the new Moto MPX 300.
Also i'm thinking of going to T-Mobile because of the discount on Wi-Fi you can get.

[kevinsb1]

I just got mine from AT&T, the T226 to replace my T68i.
No Bluetooth!!! So I can't use my BT headset or transfer picture files to the phone :( . It looks like a pretty cheap phone too!
I'm waiting for a new smartphone with a camera, possibly the new Moto MPX 300.
Also i'm thinking of going to T-Mobile because of the discount on Wi-Fi you can get.

I got the same offer from ATT. To upgrade my 3650, which is less than a year old. They would upgrade me to a new phone for free, but the phone selection they offered seemed limited. Also read the fine print. Mine said if i took the new phone it would extent my contract for another year.

Once my year is up im leaving ATT. You cant beat verizon in the northeast.


Kevin

[rbrome]

Is this some hysteria about devices becoming obsolete? My understanding from ATT is the 850 is an overlay (to improve indoor reception) and 1900 will remain intact and functioning and not be eliminated.

What is so great on TMobile in terms of coverage and reception?

The issue is tower spacing.

The 800 (850) band "reaches" farther than 1900, so a network designed for 800 has towers spaced father apart. You need more towers to provide the same coverage with 1900.

Large parts of AT&T's network were designed for 800 - first for analog, then TDMA 800. AT&T had 1900 spectrum in many of these areas, but either didn't use it, or used it just for added capacity in metro areas.

When they rolled out GSM, they did it just in 1900, because it was easier, cheaper, and faster. There weren't many 850 phones available yet, either. That's one reason AT&T was able to roll out GSM nationwide way before Cingular.

The problem is, running 1900 on a network with towers spaced for 850 is guaranteed to provide spotty coverage. AT&T knew this from day one, but seemed okay with it, figuring they would deal with it and improve the network over time.

Now they seem to have changed their mind. I don't know whether it's complaints about spotty coverage, or the Cingular merger that prompted this... (Cingular is 850-only in many areas.) It's probably a combination of both.

So what's so great about T-Mobile? Their network was designed for 1900 from the beginning. The towers are spaced correctly for that frequency.

The real shame in all this is that most people don't know about the tower-spacing thing. A lot of AT&T customers just think GSM = bad coverage. It's shameful that AT&T deployed a network that they KNEW would provide bad coverage due to mismatched tower spacing.

At least they're finally trying to rectify the situation, but then this whole trade-down thing is ridiculous... :roll:

[rbrome]

What I really want to know is why carriers and handset manufacturers can't get their act together and just make all of their phones quadband. :roll:

It's all in the antenna.

Actually, many (if not most) new GSM phones - even dual-band ones - technically have quad-band radios. But apparently, it's really hard to design an antenna that does both 850 and 900 well, so most phones ship with a dual- or tri-band antenna, and the phone firmware is simply programmed to use only the bands the antenna supports.

[merlin]

8O 8O Thanks kevinsb1!!
I didn't read that damned small print. I'm sending this crap back to them!
I will never get another 2 year contract again from a cell phone carrier again.
My year is also almost up.

[Janak Parekh]

It's all in the antenna.
So, we need multiple antennas, right? ;) Have one be internal and one external or something.

Thanks for the clarification, though. Do you know what existing (and upcoming) quadband phones do? Sacrifice antenna optimality for one of the four bands?

--janak

[anthonymoody]

Is this some hysteria about devices becoming obsolete? My understanding from ATT is the 850 is an overlay (to improve indoor reception) and 1900 will remain intact and functioning and not be eliminated.

What is so great on TMobile in terms of coverage and reception?


I've had way better experience w/TMo in terms of coverage and reception (not to mention fewer dropped calls) than I used to with ATT, but that's not the half of it. I now pay WAY less for WAY more in terms of minutes and data, and, customer service is actually that: people who are reasonably knowledgeable (or can quickly bounce you up 1-2 levels to get even more informed folks on the line, including actual real honest to god network ops engineers who really know what they're doing), people who actually help you out, people who are reasonably impowered to make decisions, people who seem genuinely interested in making the customer happy, people who service you when you need help.

I reiterate: ATT sucks.

TM

[jgrnt1]

I switched to T-Mobile from AT&T a little over a year ago. I was with AT&T for years. I had their Digital One Rate plan (TDMA, nationwide coverage, no long distance charges). I could not switch to their GSM plans because they did not cover some of the areas I travel on business. When I switched to T-Mobile, I went from 1500 minutes/month for $149 to 2500 minutes/month for $99. I added unlimited wi-fi for another $20 and, because of the extra 1000 minutes, was able to eliminate my home office line. I now have one business phone number, more minutes, unlimited wi-fi, and save $70/month. In addition, T-Mobile customer service has actually been responsive. I had a problem with my phone. They mailed me another (took two days). I switched phones, put my old one in the box, stuck their prepaid label on it and put it back in my mailbox.

I just hope they carry the Motorola MPx, though it will be difficult to part with my iPAQ 2215.

[piperpilot]

I think it's totally lame that AT&T would substitute a non-BT phone for my BT t68i. The ironic part is that I dropped the t68i on the ground last week and it no longer works. It was a piece of crap anyway but I replaced it with a Siemens S56, which I like a lot better and which gets better reception. I will not be accepting the SonyEricsson replacement.

[heliod]

What I want to know is why are there so many bands? Why can't carriers just get together and use one low and one high band instead of a few of each? :confused totally:

Oh, I was waiting for that. The US has entered GSM after the whole world, so why the need to be different. They've got stoned by everybody when they chose 1900 instead of 1800, but now go for 850 after so many years ??? It is just unbelievable.

[Janak Parekh]

Oh, I was waiting for that. The US has entered GSM after the whole world, so why the need to be different. They've got stoned by everybody when they chose 1900 instead of 1800, but now go for 850 after so many years ??? It is just unbelievable.
They don't have a choice -- 900MHz is used by the military as well.

From what I've heard, the story is backwards -- the FCC identified that 900/1800 was not available many years ago when the GSM association was being formed, but for one reason or another, the GSM association went ahead and used those two bands for Europe and Asia anyway. Unfortunately, I don't have the citation in front of me right now. And in any case, the GSM association had to "officially" approve GSM 850 before it was used, so we're not being "different" just for fun.

--janak

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

In addition, T-Mobile customer service has actually been responsive.
Amen to that. Never in my life has ANY company's customer service managed to upset me more often then ATTWS. It came to a point where I began expecting to be on hold for 1+ hour followed by an unapologetic rep who would lecture me on how the problems I have with ATTWS is no different than problems I would have with other carriers.

I was so fed up. I ended up switching 3 months before my ATTWS contract was expired. The difference between ATTWS and TMo is night and day. I agree with another poster in saying that ATTWS will NEVER ever get another cent out of my pocket.

[piperpilot]

I've had no problem with AT&T Wireless insofar as my interactions with them. That said, however, there are countless times that I can recall not having a strong enough signal to use my phone when people with other service providers had a full signal. I think most of the problem was the phone itself--the t68i had crappy reception. With that phone, I couldn't get reception in my house and would have to walk out into the front yard to use my cell phone. The same thing happened when I was in Vegas a couple of months ago and Orlando last month. The phone would not get reception in the hotels. Now that I have the Siemens S56, I am getting reception in the house at home. Will test it out in a hotel next week. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one.

[adamz]

When I switched to T-Mobile, I went from 1500 minutes/month for $149 to 2500 minutes/month for $99. I added unlimited wi-fi for another $20 and, because of the extra 1000 minutes, was able to eliminate my home office line. I now have one business phone number, more minutes, unlimited wi-fi, and save $70/month. In addition, T-Mobile customer service has actually been responsive. I had a problem with my phone. They mailed me another (took two days). I switched phones, put my old one in the box, stuck their prepaid label on it and put it back in my mailbox.


Don't forget, you also have free unlimited GPRS access (WAP, HTTP, POP, IMAP, SMTP) built into every T-Mobile plan.

I've got a grandfathered Talk & Text plan with a grandfathered 1Mb GPRS Smartphone Internet add-on. So that's $35/mo for 325 weekday min, unlimited Weekends, 800 SMS messages, 30 MMS messages, unlimited GPRS WAP/HTTP/IMAP/POP/SMTP internet, and 1Mb GPRS full internet. Then there's the global roaming, Internet roaming in Europe, etc.
I love T-Mobile (as long as I'm in a coverage area)!

[urologyhealth]

How is the coverage in the USA compared to ATT?? or is that too general a question?

[whydidnt]

As an owner of an MPX200, I'm curious to see what AT&T thinks is a "fair" trade for my smartphone. I live in the Twin Cities area, which shows as "850" on the map. I actually unlocked the Moto and use it on TMobile, but have a family member that uses my old T68i on AT&T and it seems "ok" in the metropolitatn area.

It's ridiculous that they are still selling these phones (non 850 band) in these markets despite the fact they know they aren't going to improve or provide acceptable levels of coverage. I wonder what Cingular was thinking when they decided to buy these guys?

[whydidnt]

How is the coverage in the USA compared to ATT?? or is that too general a question?

I think it depends on the area - but It is impossible to say for sure since AT&T is not able to provide an accurate GSM coverage map. At least not anywhere I can find. They always have it overlayed with their TDMA area and good luck figuring it out. Even the sales people a their company stores can't really say where GSM coverage begins and ends.

[Jason Lee]

I live in southwest missouri. Here T-mobile has the worst coverage of all. Sprint, Nextel, AT&T, Cingular, Altell... WAAAY better than T-mobile. I used AT&T back when they were the _only_ digital provider here. Used them for years. Then Nextel showed up with wireless internet.. I had to have that. :D But I finnaly got fed-up with only being able to use my phone on the highway and in major cities and AT&T didn't have internet. So i have been using Sprint since. From my experiance Sprint has the worst possible customer support and phone selection out there but I am getting 300 anytime minutes, unlimited nights and weekends starting at 7:00pm and unlimited internet (which is way faster than GPRS, not counting EDGE) all for $40 per month. No longdistance charges or roaming. To get something similar to that with AT&T I would have to pay $59.99 for minutes and $99.99 for unlimited data.... 8O

T-mobile really sounds great but I couln't use my phone at home or at work or at friends houses... well you get the idea.

I just want to get online with my ppc and that's not gonna happen with sprint but i have no ship to jump to... :(
stupid bass ackwards region of the contry... :)

AT&T used to be good... but I haven't been with them in 6 or more years.

[spaceman]

I have the AT&T T68i. Just received by UPS without asking for one, a T226 replacement phone. Instuctions says this is free upgrade. But a request is made to send back the T68i in a postage free return bag. Except this phone does not have Bluetooth nor IrDA for connecting a pocket PC device. What good is this?

I wonder if I can return for a BT model. There are only BT models listed on the AT&T website: Nokia 6820, Nokia 3620 and T616.

Been reading on HowardForum that you DON"T have to return the T68i without extra cost. There may be fine print concerning automatic extension of your contract by 1 year. Have to call AT&T CS to confirm.

[piperpilot]

I wonder if I can return for a BT model. There are only BT models listed on the AT&T website: Nokia 6820, Nokia 3620 and T616.

Spaceman, in addition to the phones you listed, the Siemens S56 is available. I know that it has BT because I am using it to connect to my H5455 iPAQ. I don't know why it doesn't show up on the AT&T web site as an available BT phone, but it is available in the AT&T stores. I checked the specs and it works on the new 850 Mhz standard. I recommend it over the SonyEricsson T616. When I bought the Siemens S56 last week, AT&T was out of stock on all the Nokia BT phones, so I bought the Siemens phone because I really dislike SonyEricsson. Afterwards, I read in Consumer Reports that the Siemens phones, including the S56 were very highly rated.

[anthonymoody]

I would agree with the poster above that making blanket statements about one carriers signal strength vs. anothers is a tricky proposition. That said, for where my travels take me (primarily major metro areas as well as a few select vacation spots) TMo coverage works great for me.

TM

[Janak Parekh]

Spaceman, in addition to the phones you listed, the Siemens S56 is available.
http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=213

I wonder why it says "discontinued" by AT&T even though it has the two US bands? :|

--janak

[piperpilot]

Hmmm . . . maybe that's why I couldn't find it on the web site. Nevertheless, it's available in their stores and I like it much better than the T68i

[beq]

I wish I'm not with ATTWS.

In order to keep our existing numbers we stuck through PrimeCo (defunct CDMA regional carrier) until they got bought by ATTWS when we had to switch to TDMA, then later switched to GSM soon as it was available. All the while looking enviously at T-Mo as they started offering flat-rate GPRS, etc...

But, a couple of days before the Nov 24 LNP, I went ahead and added a third line with ATTWS and extended existing contract (all the while knowing about LNP well in advance). I can't explain my action, it's a head-scratcher for the shrinks :?

It gets even better. This customer loyalty resulted in the biggest problem I've had with them. I purchased the extra third line directly from an ATTWS store and somehow a phantom 4th line got added into our accounts (I don't recognize its number at all). It's taken months to wrestle with ATTWS, and every bill since has contained such egregious errors that I've come to dread it each month. For example they'd tried to cancel that 4th line and ended up deactivating all of our accounts by mistake. Then the next bill came in at $800-850 because we were charged $175 early cancellation fee x 4 8O Customer phone service has been getting steadily worse too, longer hold times or just plain "too busy". That said I'm always nice when I talk to them, by that point I'd just want to fix any mistakes asap and don't feel like taking the time to vent (I guess that's what online forums are for hehe).

Anyways though, my family's in New York at the moment and I'm glad I'd bought them T616 phones (I'm still using my old T68i). The GSM850 support should help...

[ctmagnus]

On March 8, Rogers AT&T Wireless changed their name to Rogers Wireless. I wonder if this indicates that Rogers doesn't plan to change frequencies.

[Bugaki2]

I just got off the phone with ATTWS and they would not budge. Has anyone researched the possibility of a Class Action Suite against them. I mean I paid almost $200 for my T68i not even a year ago and now they are telling me that if I want to continue to have coverage I have to abandon that phone and get a new one. The T226 is a piece of junk to boot. Doesn't even have half of the features of my 68i. ATTWS also tried telling me that the 68i is not affected by this and did not qualify for the replacement "UPGRADE" plan. That was till I directed them the the www.sonyericcsonT226upgrade.com site. They then quickly changed their tune. In any case the best I could get for a deal on a better phone was $60 for a T616. That's with a 2 year agreement. I do not believe I should have to pay to replace the phone I paid for last year just so I can continue to pay them monthly as well. Has anyone else gotten a better deal on a different phone than the T226? If so what model and how much $ did it cost you.

[Prevost]

GSM 850 (USA, Panama...), GSM 900/1800 (Europe), GSM 1900 (Asia-Pacific ???)...

Can anyone here explain me WHY IS THERE NEED FOR USING DIFFERENT FREQUENCY STANDARDS? :evil:

This prevents from using some cool equipment in some areas... :roll: :cry: :?

[Janak Parekh]

GSM 850 (USA, Panama...), GSM 900/1800 (Europe), GSM 1900 (Asia-Pacific ???)...
Not quite. GSM 850/1900 is North & Central America (not sure about South America). GSM 900/1800 is Europe & Asia.

Can anyone here explain me WHY IS THERE NEED FOR USING DIFFERENT FREQUENCY STANDARDS? :evil:
Because other people are using 900/1800 in North America.

--janak

[Prevost]

Can anyone here explain me WHY IS THERE NEED FOR USING DIFFERENT FREQUENCY STANDARDS? :evil:
Because other people are using 900/1800 in North America.

--janak
Very interesting indeed...

Do yoy mean every company selects a single and distinct frequency? If so, then how many frequencies or carriers are there in Europe?

Here, Bellsouth (USA) and Cable&Wireless (England) provide cell phone services. They both started carriying only TDMA, now they are splitting, Bell into CDMA and Cable into GSM 850

[Janak Parekh]

Do yoy mean every company selects a single and distinct frequency? If so, then how many frequencies or carriers are there in Europe?
Sort of. In North America, the US military has claimed 900/1800, so the FCC was unable to give it up for cellular frequencies. As for 800/1900, the FCC auctions blocks of those off to carriers. As to the number of carriers in each band (800/1900 here vs 900/1800 here), I don't know exact numbers -- and no, a single carrier may have a mix of spectrum across NA.

Here, Bellsouth (USA) and Cable&Wireless (England) provide cell phone services. They both started carriying only TDMA, now they are splitting, Bell into CDMA and Cable into GSM 850
Right -- but they'll stll be 800/1900. ;)

--janak

[tfelber]

I have been with at&t for 8 years for wireless, internet, and long distance. I recently switched to GSM, at the stores suggestion, and all I have to say is what a piece...

Every call I make or recieve gets dropped. Their first excuse was "coverage". Well I live in Phoenix, 6th largest city in the US, and I work in LA, 2nd largest city in the US, and these areas don't have "coverage". Then why did they reccommend the GSM service?

The next excuse was software in the phone. All the phones apparently have this SOFTWARE problem. Yeah right! They sent me a new phone. It's worse than before!!!

And then there's customer service! For the first 45 days I go into a store to switch back and their system is down, come back another day. You call 611 and wait for 30 minutes to get through and then they can't help you...

I would switch back to Digital, but since I've been working with them to resolve the problem it has been more then 30 days and Not only do I have to buy a new phone, but they won't give me credit for the $400 I just spent on the GSM phones!!!

Cingular, you just bought a load of !@#$ and lost a dedicated customer.

[Bugaki2]

I have gone through the exact same ordeal with AT&T here on the east coast. I had TDMA ans all was fine just wanted a new phone. AT&T store rep coerced me into GSM with the promises of better coverage and features. I was never told there was an option to switch back. I was told that I could not. Can not xfer a number back from GSM to TDMA. What A crock. Needless to say. 1 year later of GSM poor reception, dropped calles and now this with the POS t226 they want me to take in place of my $200 T68is. I have heard there is a class action suite starting up over this but I can not find any info on it. If anyone knows where this can be found please direct me to it. I'm ready. I've even tried to get them to give me a better phone than the T226 and all I can get is the offer that if I sign up for the new "Customers First" plan and wait a year I can then get a new phone free after rebates. I guess it does not matter that I've been a customer for almost 5 years now.

[Prevost]

Here in Panama, although I'm still with a TDMA phone, the switch of many people into GSM 850 was also problematic. However, after about a year, I don't hear complains any longer...

[Bugaki2]

Here is a link for any interested. Please join in and sign the online letter to AT&T. If enough of us do this, maybe collectively, we can get AT&T to give us a better option than the T226's they believe are a good replacement for the T68i. Spread the word.

http://attletter.winstrands.com

[wesley762]

well I called customer service and had a little talk with them. right now they are offering the t616 online free with a 2 year contract. is says nothing about being a new user. so never the less I have gotten a new t616 on the way to me. I did sign the 2 year contract but got a better plan at the same price. the rep was very nice and friendly. I did however have to wait almost 20 miuntes to talk to some one but got done what I wanted. I did have to point out the web site to them and they did check it but was very willing to help me. I am guessing alot of though was due to the fact that my contract was out to. but I am a happy att customer again for now.

anyone want a t226 I have one thats not going to be used now. sarting to make we wonder what I can get for it on ebay hehe. thanks att.

[piperpilot]

I wanted nothing to do with the T226, so I never let UPS deliver it to me. I told UPS to send it back and they did. Problem solved. I bought a Siemens and like it much better than the SonyEricsson anyway. Still, wouldn't mind being part of a class action lawsuit :wink:

[Bugaki2]

well I called customer service and had a little talk with them. right now they are offering the t616 online free with a 2 year contract. is says nothing about being a new user. so never the less I have gotten a new t616 on the way to me. I did sign the 2 year contract but got a better plan at the same price. the rep was very nice and friendly. I did however have to wait almost 20 miuntes to talk to some one but got done what I wanted. I did have to point out the web site to them and they did check it but was very willing to help me. I am guessing alot of though was due to the fact that my contract was out to. but I am a happy att customer again for now.

anyone want a t226 I have one thats not going to be used now. sarting to make we wonder what I can get for it on ebay hehe. thanks att.

I've been calling them regularly for 2 weeks now and still can't get the t616 for anything less than $50. They told me on the phone that the web offers were for new customers only.

[piperpilot]

The whole problem with agreeing to extend your contract an additional two years is that in less than a year when you tire of the "obsolete" T616, you will be sucked into further extending your contract another two years in order to get a new phone for a reasonable price. Those years keep adding up and before you know it, you're locked into the same provider for multiple years and will be unable to switch without paying a large termination fee. I'd rather pay now and retain my ability to switch to a new (read: better) provider.