Cingular has had growing pains as a result of their acquisition of AT&T
Wireless.

Many, many people nationwide got stuck with what you experienced,
starting about May of 2005.  I noticed it, and when I went to
forums.cingular.com I saw a huge spike in people seeing the same thing.

I suspect that a few years from now, Cingular will have their sh.t 
together on all of this.  But for now, the technical end of their
business is having some, um, "challenges".

As is the customer service side of their business.  I migrated from the
former AT&T Wireless side (the blue side) to the Cingular (orange) side
the other day, and it was a nightmare.  It was a 22 day odyssey; the
problems were rooted not in a lack of caring on their part, but in a
lack of training and a lack of communication among the various parts of
Cingular.  Everyone was happy to try to help, but their lack of
knowledge of Cingular's business and offerings got in the way.

I probably spent 15 hours total on the phone with those people.

Were it not for the great price I was getting (family 450 for $41.99),
I'd have just dumped them and moved to Verizon.  But Verizon doesn't
have a competitive rate plan, and I don't need all that Verizon's entry
level plan offers, so I gritted my teeth and stuck it out with Cingular.

I'll get my first bill in early January.  I can't WAIT to see how
they'll screw that one up.  I'll probably spend more time on the phone
with them, trying to get various entities within Cingular to acknowledge
what other entities within Cingular are doing or have set up.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to it all working, once it's all set up and
humming along.  But getting to that point has already been a major
challenge, and I foresee billing issues to be a challenge as well.

That all being said, I'm using the same Nokia 3120 phones that I used
over on the Blue side--but with Cingular SIMs in them, I'm seeing much
better signal overall.  MUCH better.

And you know what?  Plenty of Verizon customers have stories not unlike
yours.  I'm under no illusion that the grass is greener on the other
side of the fence.  All the providers have the same goals, and all
providers put customers in the middle like that in order to achieve
those goals.  Verizon is likely to end up pissing you off as well,
and/or Cingular is likely to make me as happy as Verizon makes you.  
Whichever, we're all in the same boat.

Frankly, I like the idea of the SIM card.  I hate the idea of Verizon
not letting me activate an older phone, for example, or crippling the
Bluetooth capabilities of their phones like they do.  When service is
tied to the HANDSET, you have your own set of problems that the SIM card
concept gets around.

I absolutely HATE to sound like John Navas here, but a post like yours
deserves a reality check.  Cingular is no angel, but neither is Verizon.  
And at least I know the source of many of Cingular's technical issues
today, and I know that their technical problems will be addressed by the
necessity of eventually moving everyone over to the orange side of the
house.

Cingular is trying to build several new towers here in LV and is being blocked
by the city council and every street block assn. known to mankind.

About a week ago, I switched from Sprint after 5-years to Cingulat, so far I
am happy with cingular service.
I live in Michigan, Sprint service regarding to drop calls was good, until
Sprint took over the Nextel. Since that time, i was getting a lot of drop
calls. In my home for somereason it's signal was fading in and out most of
the time, sometimes no signal for few second.
Customer service got very bad with a lot of waiting time on phone. It has
24/7 customer service, but recently most of the calls answers in India with
heavy Indian accents, and they are not very knowlegable about the Sprint.

One thing I must warn bout Sprint, if you change a plan or add some features
your contract will be extended.

Irenewed my Service contract on 05-17-2003 for 2-years with a free phone. On
12-15-2003 I decided to add that my Night and Weekends starts at 7.00PM, my
contract was extended  to 12-17-2005 instead of 05-17-2005.
So far I foun Cingular customer service try to help and polite conterary to
Sprint customer service.
So far I am getting better signal and  no drop calls at my location.

Actually it has in most areas, your unhappy experience notwithstanding.

CU (publisher of Consumer Reports) didn't distinguish between GSM and TDMA,
much less handsets with and without ENS, which makes the survey badly flawed.

They are trying, but lying at the same time.
I was at a Cingular cellsite a couple months ago, new equipment being
installed.  You won't believe it, the technician that was working on
it didn't believe it either.  

This particular cellsite was all Ericsson equipment, two cabinets
full. 12 radios.  It was all edge stuff too.  

They took out perfectly good functional Nokia Edge equipment, two
cabinets full.  Same capacity. Same speed. Same capabilities.

So Cingular, at least in this area, is removing one brand to change to
another brand, using their techs to spend days doing this rather than
installing new equipment or increasing capacity.  The tech said "this
is so stupid, someone must have paid someone off."

BTW, there were several truckloads of contractors there, changing out
the cell tower for a new one, about the same.  

Unbelievable.

I have been a Cingular customer four four years with two separate
accounts, one is a family share plan. I migrated from a gait account to
GSM about 18 months ago. I have minimal complaints about the coverage in
NE Ohio and all my many encounters with customer service have been very
positive. I find that being respectful and polite with CS gets much
better results than does being pugnacious.

Stephen R. Conrad

I've had Cingular since 1999, and started with GSM.  I've never had
significant problems, and when I did have some glitch to get
straightened out it always was.  My wife and I got on a family plan
they offered for a few months in 2000, we both have phones on a single
shared bill for only $30/month.  Sure, we also get only 100 any-time
minutes per month, no rollover, but we're not teenagers that gab all
day on the phones.

I just got back from Mexico City and it was great to have my same
phone work down there.  GSM is fine.