George,
This "tactic" has been reported in other AT&T stores, lately.  It's a
balance between getting a new customer on GSM, versus losing an old (TDMA)
customer on GSM.  I'm sure the store employees are being told to not
encourage, or even DIScourage TDMA customers from changing to GSM because
the net effect may be that these customers who upgraded and found the GSM
network inferior to the TDMA network, have either returned to TDMA, or have
left AT&T.

It has all the appearances that AT&T is admitting that their GSM network is
"not ready for prime time," but they certainly won't admit that in public.
I think they will eventually iron all this out.  In the meantime, call
Customer Service to see if you can get a better response.

-Bill Radio
Western U.S. Wireless Reviews at:
http://www.MountainWireless.com

Although AT&T is going through much transition now I think it bodes well at
least in one sense.  The AT&T reps could have taken the usual sales route &
told you that their GSM is the greatest thing in the world hoping the
limited area would not be enough to make you cancel.  Instead they were
honest with you and told you the truth.  Most carriers (if not all) have a
growing period with new technology as it is still a work in progress.  I'm
not telling you that AT&T has the most ideal situation (far from it) but at
least they did try and give you a snow job.

Bruce

Two possibilities; the company stores may have discouraged you because
of the GSM CRM "upgrade" that has been going on for a couple of weeks,
and just didn't want to tell you that they couldn't complete your
request even if they wanted to.  Either that, or they are trying to
slow the adoption of GSM in your area because that have not moved
enough spectrum from TDMA yet.  As for the T-Mobile salesgirl, I bet
she was under contract with them when she got her ATTWS job; she
probably worked for them first and was let go or changed jobs.

Second, I'm assuming that the kiosks you visited were the mall-type
"we sell every provider" type.  I used to work at one of those, and I
hated selling ATTWS service because their commissions were lower than
the rest.  We kept our ATTWS phones uncharged so we didn't have to
demo them.