the only way YOU WILL GET THE BENEFITS OF THE NEW COMBINED NETWORK IS ONLY WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR OLD ATT PLAN,MIGRATE OVER TO A NEW CURRENT CINGULAR PLAN WITH A NEW CINGULAR PHONE AND CINGULAR 64K SIM, TILL THEN YOUR PHONE WILL LOOK FOR THE ATT TOWER AND IT MAY THE WEAKEST ONE AND THERE COULD A CINGULAR TOWER LOT MORE STRONG, BUT WITH YOUR PRE-MERGER PHONE, YOU'LL NEVER SEE THE DIFFERENCE TILL YOU SWITCH

Maybe look into the Family plans. You may be able to get one of those for close to as many minutes. For example you can get a 99.99 with 2000 minutes and add lines for 9.99 each. I had a customer that had two 39.99 with 1000 minutes and a 39.99 with 600 minutes. But she didn't use all those minutes so the family 99.99 was the same amount and the roll over easly made up for the loss of minutes after the first month. Just a thought.

I switch my s46 siemens to cingular only all the time. Just go to your setting network area of your phone. Disable the automatic network search, and the phone will look for a new network. It comes up with ATT and Cingular I click Cingular and it stays there for days. When I activate the auto network search again it goes back to ATT.

But switching to the cingular version will pick up the same towers.

Possibly more if cingular's are more numberous.

In that case, it may be better....but that's a lot of trouble for something so easily fixed with a cingular phone. But I understand he doesn't want to change.

If I switched to the Cingular service, I'd be on the stronger 850Mhz system. My phone tries to do that a lot anyway because AT&T's 1900Mhz do penetrate these walls as well, but then as soon as it finds even a hint of AT&T, it switches back to AT&T. With my old V600, I was able to switch to manual and lock Cingular and it would stay. Now it doesn't. I'm getting 1200 anytime, Unlm N&W starting at 7p, Unlim M2M for only $59.99. I'd rather live with the weak signal than transfer over to Cingular plan and have the high bills.

Yeah,well down the road you'll BE FORCE MIGRATED, so do yourself a favour and do it with a good offer, then be FORCED down the road on Cingular's terms!!!!

Perhaps, but as time goes on, the offers will only get better as well. Right now, has has no need to switch, since he wont be "forced" for at least a year, if not two..

don't know where you're info is from, its a lot closer then that!!!!

I'd guess we're at least a year away from that force. If they force me and the deals haven't gotten better, I'll terminate whether they let me out or not. I would assume I'd be given the option to leave like previous mergers I've experienced throughout the country. I recently renewed my agreement for 2 additional years with ATTWS. In the past I've been given the option out..(I.e. Airtouch, MCI, etc..)If not, I'll just pay the fee because I can't see goin from 1200 to 850 rollover and 7p nights to 9p nights for the same $59.99. I did hear it could take some time though because of the number of customers who have purchased pretty expensive ATTWS phones within the past 3 months. I'm sure they'd be pretty pissed with they're ATTWS locked phones...
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See 2 things, 1)They can force migrate if you are on or out of contract, or 2 they can force migrate you onto a comparable plan and phone with the same contract you have.If you see the T&C, it was changed recently say about 6months before the "official anouncement" stating that they have the right to do that by selling the company to another company and you by signing up for 2 years recently shouldhave read that T&C, if you didn't still legally binding, FYI. 😈 😈

FYI, the difference isthat the other companies simply went out of business, in this casethe they were bought out and merged into cingular's familiy and ownership.

Airtouch merged with Verizon Wireless just like the ATT/Cingular merger. MCI was a reseller that just went out of business.

And the T&C says nothing specifically about having the right to force me into a smaller plan mid contract with no "out" and forcing me to buy a compatible phone. Now, if they give me a comparable phone replacement for free (not likely) and give me a comparable plan, thats different.

Do you know how much of a PR problem it would be if in 6 months or earlier they forced folks who just purchased ATT locked MPX220's, ATT locked Blackberry's and other highend ATT phones to buy a new phone? Imagine the B2B. I just sold my indirect store and recently sold 30 MPX200's to a local business. I can't see that happening too s...
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A)THEYWOULD YOU GIVE YOU A COMPARABLE PHONE FOR FREE(REFURBISHED) SINCE YOURS AIN'T NEW EITHER, AND A COMPARABLE PLAN,BUT NOT IN YOUR EYES OR OPINION, JUST WHAT CINGULAR DEEMS SO.

A RESLLER GOING TITS UP IS A LOT DIFFERENT THEN ATT BEING BOUGHT BY CINGULAR,

I KNOW I WAS WORKING WITH THE CUSTOMERS THAT WERE MIGRATED THE SAME WAY TO AWS FROM WORLDCOM, OR GOING BACK A COUPLE OF YEARS PARADIGM!!!

AS FOR BEING FORCE MIGRATED THEY CAN,BECAUSE IT DOES STATE THAT YOU GETTHE BENEFITS OF THE PLAN AND PROMTIONS YOU HAVE FOR THE "LIFE OF THE PLAN" IF ITS EXPIRED WHICH THEY WERE THEN NO MORE LIFE IN THEM SINCE THEY AREN'T SOLD TO THE PUBLIC.

I don't think what you're saying about forcing us over very soon is true. Even the newcingular.com site confirms that there is nothing to worry about for ATT folks.

This is right from the site confirming what Cingular customer care told me about being able to keep my current ATT rateplan for the length of my new 2 year contract:

Q: How will the merger affect where I can use my wireless phone?
A: Your service will continue without interruption. By combining the strengths of Cingular and AT&T Wireless, our goal is to provide you with the best wireless experience.

If you have GSM service, you will have access to the ALLOVERSM Network*, the largest digital voice and data network in America, which means more signal bars in more places....
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Our call center has been told we will be supporting legasy AWS customer for about two years before we will be trained on the Cingular systems...You can take that how you want but that's telling me legasy AWS customers should be able to keep their phones for about that long. They are going to try and get as many people to migrate themselfs before they do anything about forcing. Our training said they are expecting 500,000 customer per month to migrate for the first 6 months. I'm not sure what the numbers are like in acual but i can see that.

That sounds more realistic. I can't believe they'd be forcing us very soon. And even voluntarily, many of us AT&T customers have these charter plans and even basic plans with so many more minutes. The problem comes for those looking to upgrade phones. Then they have to switch to Cingular unless they're like me and go to eBay (but of course there is no discount there). So yeah, 500,000 sounds like a realistic number.

Hmm..AT&T phones may become a commodity, eh? Might be a good investment! 😉

i laugh at the people that have the charter plans, thise contractshave been removed, you think you gonna keep them, remember they get to remove those benefits and just say no more ETF for you.Those are gonna go really damn soon!!!I already say at least 6 accounts that contracts were removed off the system.

Switching to cingular will help but thats because the cingluar brand phone are ENS and 64k sim enabled to allow access to ANY tower just the strongest signal, the old att phones were built to go any att signal first, no matter how weak the signal might be.The new cingular phone also won't work on the att service at all, neither will the 64k sim, thats why you also need a cingular plan along with that phone.!!1