It is always a good idea to update the IMEI, not really in terms of reception, that does not matter, but for troubleshooting, if you are having any problems downloading, texting or mmode problems, this will help to ensure our systems are working with the right info. As well in any sort of insurance or warenty concerns. You alpha tag will switch to cingular gradually, there are a lot of towers and they are switching them over slowly as you would not beleive the amount of calls we get from people freaking out about their alpha tags switching. It is like the sky is falling. I would say probably by the end of Jan, they will mostly all be converted to the Cingular name. Good LUck

No it does not help your service IMEI would come in handy if you want to process a warrenty exchange or process an insurance claim. We would still know what phone you have b/c when you use the internet on your device it registers the phone in the system. 🙂