ATT Wireless question?

[Mayfriday0529]

Have any of you ATT Wireless users switch to Cingular plans and if so do you get to keep your ATT phones or do you have to switch to a Cingular phone?

Edit: someone in ATT forums confirmed to me that yes if you move to cingular you need a new phone.

 

[gluck]

Why do you wanna switch to Cingular ? I recently bought an ATT phone. I needed more minutes and ATT had some awesome deal going around so I just got ATT. If your phone is GSM you can keep it. need not get a new one.

 

[Mayfriday0529]

Originally posted by: gluck
Why do you wanna switch to Cingular ? I recently bought an ATT phone. I needed more minutes and ATT had some awesome deal going around so I just got ATT. If your phone is GSM you can keep it. need not get a new one.

I'm going to get the Treo 650 (if i can find it). Anyways in order to get the Locked Treo 650 i need to switch to a cingular plan and the ATT account would get closed.

but i also have another phone with ATT using a LG 4015 which i got about 4 months ago and i rather not spend more money upgrading that phone also.

Both my phones use a Family plan at the moment.

 

[Injury]

Cingular's billing dept. is TEH SUX0R! There were multiple occasions where they didn't send my bill to me (thus making my payments late), didn't get the check I sent to pay the bill (thus making my payments late), added fees for said late payments after a bill actually had been sent out, making my payment not have been complete, (thus making my payments late) and when I changed my plan to a lower priced one, I got the benefits of the new plan for 2 months, but billed for the previous plan for those 2 months.


If you switch to cingular, I recommend doing all of your payments/billing stuff online, as you don't have to rely on the dimwits at their billing center to do their job, or, if they fail to, you have some record of the transaction to make them STFU.

 

[sixone]

Originally posted by: Injury
Cingular's billing dept. is TEH SUX0R! There were multiple occasions where they didn't send my bill to me (thus making my payments late), didn't get the check I sent to pay the bill (thus making my payments late), added fees for said late payments after a bill actually had been sent out, making my payment not have been complete, (thus making my payments late) and when I changed my plan to a lower priced one, I got the benefits of the new plan for 2 months, but billed for the previous plan for those 2 months.

If you switch to cingular, I recommend doing all of your payments/billing stuff online, as you don't have to rely on the dimwits at their billing center to do their job, or, if they fail to, you have some record of the transaction to make them STFU.

This is excellent advice. Ignore it at your own risk.

<--------former Cingular customer.

 

[Mayfriday0529]

Originally posted by: sixone

Originally posted by: Injury
Cingular's billing dept. is TEH SUX0R! There were multiple occasions where they didn't send my bill to me (thus making my payments late), didn't get the check I sent to pay the bill (thus making my payments late), added fees for said late payments after a bill actually had been sent out, making my payment not have been complete, (thus making my payments late) and when I changed my plan to a lower priced one, I got the benefits of the new plan for 2 months, but billed for the previous plan for those 2 months.

If you switch to cingular, I recommend doing all of your payments/billing stuff online, as you don't have to rely on the dimwits at their billing center to do their job, or, if they fail to, you have some record of the transaction to make them STFU.

This is excellent advice. Ignore it at your own risk.

<--------former Cingular customer.

Good i already do online paying all the time.

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: sixone

Originally posted by: Injury
Cingular's billing dept. is TEH SUX0R! There were multiple occasions where they didn't send my bill to me (thus making my payments late), didn't get the check I sent to pay the bill (thus making my payments late), added fees for said late payments after a bill actually had been sent out, making my payment not have been complete, (thus making my payments late) and when I changed my plan to a lower priced one, I got the benefits of the new plan for 2 months, but billed for the previous plan for those 2 months.

If you switch to cingular, I recommend doing all of your payments/billing stuff online, as you don't have to rely on the dimwits at their billing center to do their job, or, if they fail to, you have some record of the transaction to make them STFU.

This is excellent advice. Ignore it at your own risk.

<--------former Cingular customer.

This is the number one reason why I can't wait for my contract with them to end. The service in NJ is not bad, but their customer service sucks!!!

 

[imported_Mike]

:thumbsup: for the 650. You cannot have a family plan consisting of 1 phone on the cingular network and 1 phone on the att network. I would get the unlocked 650 b/c then you can keep the family plan and att has better data plans.

 

[Siva]

Unless you have an old, non-GSM phone, you shouldn't have to buy a new one. If you have a GSM phone you should already be using cingular's network.

I think ATT's rate plans and customer service kick the crap out of cingular though. I don't know why you would want to switch.

 

[Zontor]

If you're running GSM then you can unlock your phones (I know you can do the LG online) and use them on both Cingular and AT&T.

Cingular will (of course) try to sell you new phones and say your old phones won't work on their network. Bottom line: If they're GSM and you unlock 'em, they'll work - if they stay locked, they'll only work with the provider you purchased them from.

 

[dude8604]

Originally posted by: Zontor
If you're running GSM then you can unlock your phones (I know you can do the LG online) and use them on both Cingular and AT&T.

Cingular will (of course) try to sell you new phones and say your old phones won't work on their network. Bottom line: If they're GSM and you unlock 'em, they'll work - if they stay locked, they'll only work with the provider you purchased them from.

Not ANY GSM phone will work. It needs to support 1900Mhz. and preferrably also 850Mhz. to work with Cingular's network.

 

[Mayfriday0529]

Well i have a few options. I have two LG 4015 one will be upgraded to Treo 650.

option 1: Get unlocked Treo 650 (700$) and stay with ATTWS and i keep the current LG 4015
option 2: Get locked Cingular Treo 650 (449$) and will have to get a new phone to replace the other LG 4015. which i could just get the free LG C1300 which is the same LG 4015 just on the cingular side.

So in reality i end up with the same thing if i switch.

then sell both lg 4015 on ebay.

 

[conjur]

I did the opposite. I moved from Cingular to ATT right before the official merger. ATT was offering better deals on new phones and the plan was better.

I miss the rollover minutes, though.

 

[Zontor]

Originally posted by: dude8604

Originally posted by: Zontor
If you're running GSM then you can unlock your phones (I know you can do the LG online) and use them on both Cingular and AT&T.

Cingular will (of course) try to sell you new phones and say your old phones won't work on their network. Bottom line: If they're GSM and you unlock 'em, they'll work - if they stay locked, they'll only work with the provider you purchased them from.

Not ANY GSM phone will work. It needs to support 1900Mhz. and preferrably also 850Mhz. to work with Cingular's network.

You are correct - however if you're just switching from AT&T to Cingular but still living in the same area then they use the same towers & equipment. Therefore your AT&T phones would work. I guess I should've been more verbose - thanks for pointing this out.

 

[Dead3ye]

Originally posted by: Zontor

Originally posted by: dude8604

Originally posted by: Zontor
If you're running GSM then you can unlock your phones (I know you can do the LG online) and use them on both Cingular and AT&T.

Cingular will (of course) try to sell you new phones and say your old phones won't work on their network. Bottom line: If they're GSM and you unlock 'em, they'll work - if they stay locked, they'll only work with the provider you purchased them from.

Not ANY GSM phone will work. It needs to support 1900Mhz. and preferrably also 850Mhz. to work with Cingular's network.

You are correct - however if you're just switching from AT&T to Cingular but still living in the same area then they use the same towers & equipment. Therefore your AT&T phones would work. I guess I should've been more verbose - thanks for pointing this out.

If you have an AT&T branded phone (Motorola V505 in my case), you're not going to put a Cingular SIM card in it and have it work if the phone is locked. You can get your AT&T phone unlocked to use with Cingular SIMs.

You can however use all of Cingular's towers with an ATT locked phone with a ATT SIM and not get charged for roaming.

If you change to Cingular, you will get their SIMS. That's why they are telling you that your gonna have to get new phones.