Odd.  I went to Vegas last year and had full signal strength everywhere.
"Blue" is an ATT customer who was migrated to Cingular.  It's POSSIBLE that
(unless they bought a new sim recently) they are still using the ATT towers
in the Vegas area.  "Orange" means someone who actually signed up with
Cingular directly, before or after Cingular bought ATT.  Asking if the
headset was blue or orange was the right question to ask.  I suspect it was
"blue", as I had great luck on the "orange" network in Vegas.  -Dave

The "Blue" network is the old AT&T network that Cingular inherited when
they bought AT&T wireless (blue was the color of the AT&T "death star"
logo, hence the name).  The "Orange" network refers to the
infrastructure that Cingular had prior to the merger.

Cingular is working on integrating the two so that they operate as one
network, but in many places, they are still two very separate networks.

This reason this matters is that some older phones on each network will
tend to favor their "native" network over the other.  Right now, a
Cingular customer, regardless of what "color" of phone they have, can
use either network without incurring any roaming charges.  But, the
older phones don't know or care about trivial things like mergers and
network integrations. So, if the Blue network has a horrible signal in
an area, but the Orange network gives excellent coverage, an older Blue
phone would be at a disadvantage because it will try to hold onto the
Blue signal as long as it can find one, no matter how weak, even if a
perfectly useable Orange signal exists.  The reverse is also true.

This is less of an issue, however, starting with phones that have newer
64k SIM cards.  These newer SIM cards are "aware" of the merger, and
know that technically, Orange and Blue are supposed to be treated as one
and the same.

As you're from Verizon, think of it this way: it's equivalent to the
older phones having an old PRL that can't be upgraded without replacing
the SIM card inside of the phone.  Newer phones (Or old phones with
upgraded SIM cards) have the most recent PRL.

I live in the southwest area of Las Vegas.  I have had Cingular since Dec
2004.  Before that I was an ATT customer.  Up until this past July I had
very good service.  I moved a month ago, I only moved 4 blocks from my old
apt. complex to my new complex.  Now I can't get a signal in my apt or in
the complex itself.  I used to get almost perfect reception at my old place.
I have a Tmobile given to me from my job.  The Tmobile always has a full
signal.  I would like to switch to Tmobile.
Is there any way Cingular can boost the signal...if not how hard is it going
to be to get out of my contract.  I am in month 10 if a two year contract
and I have two phones on a family plan.  I hope there is a way around the
cancellation fee?

Julie