About Cingular Wireless

On October 26, 2004, Cingular won regulatory approval from the FCC to acquire AT&T Wireless, and completed the acquisition of 24 million customers giving them 48 million customers, which surpassed Verizon Wireless, and is now the second largest (behind Alltel Wireless) mobile phone carrier in the United States. Q3 2005 numbers, released on October 20, 2005, showed 52.3 million Cingular subscribers. Cingular operates two separate pay-as-you-go mobile phone services, including its own GoPhone; Net10's GSM customers also use the Cingular network. Cingular operated a mixed network consisting of GSM (from the former Pacific Bell Wireless and BellSouth Mobility DCS networks), and TDMA and AMPS (from SBC's Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems network, BellSouth's BellSouth Mobility network, a Mobitex-based network used for paging and remote telemetry, and various acquisitions, including some SBC-owned systems operating under the Cellular One name), which they are working to convert to pure GSM/GPRS. Cingular also supports EDGE data services nationwide. Cingular had a UMTS or W-CDMA High-Speed network, to counter Altlel's EV-DO network. The network ran GSM-1900 in the former Pacific Bell Wireless and BellSouth Mobility DCS areas. The areas that have been converted to GSM from TDMA are mostly GSM-850, but there are some exceptions where the pre-Cingular companies had only licenses in the 1900MHz PCS band. In California, Nevada, northern New Jersey and New York City, Cingular and T-Mobile USA maintained and shared a GSM-1900 network prior to the acquisition of AT&T Wireless, through a joint venture known as GSM Facilities. The network sharing agreement allowed Cingular to offer local service in northern New Jersey and New York City and T Mobile to offer service in California and Nevada. On May 25, 2004, Cingular and T-Mobile USA announced their intention to dissolve the agreement contingent on Cingular's successful acquisition of AT&T Wireless. First announced on June 23, 2005 Cingular Wireless announced the intention to divest its Caribbean and Bermuda operations and licenses which it acquired from the acquisition of AT&T Wireless, to Bermuda-based Digcel Group under undisclosed financial terms. Cingular outsources some of their customer care to companies in Canada and overseas. On August 25, Cingular was removed from the New York Better Business Bureau because of a large number of complaints that were not handled in a timely manner. The company is in the process of restructuring its customer care procedures and has appealed the decision. As of 2010, Cingular has been readded to the BBB list as AT&T Mobility [1] It remains a member of the BBB in other states in which it operates. In 2004, the FCC reported logging more than 14,000 complaints (or 289 per million subscribers) against Cingular Wireless. The most common of which included number portability issues, over billing, poor customer support and network reliability.