Cingular announced yesterday that it is committing more than $205 million to enhance voice and data networks in Washington, Oregon and Northern Idaho.
“Cingular is focused on building the best network for our customers throughout the state, the region and the nation,” said Mike Maxwell, vice president and general manager for Cingular in the Pacific Northwest. “The size and scope of network improvements taking place is unprecedented.”
This is excellent news for Cingular subscribers in that region. While working for AT&T wireless I fielded hundreds of complaints each week about the lack of coverage in that area. AT&T GSM (now Cingular) lost thousands of customers because they over-marketed and under-developed their GSM network in the northwestern region. When a customer called in to complain about dropped calls, low or no signal strength, no data capability and low voice quality, we were all but instructed to lie– we were to blame the issues on the geography of the region. If they lived in a valley the low terrain was the reason they had a hard time placing a call. If they lived in the mountains, the reason for their connectivity issues was altitude. If they lived on the coast, near the sound, the reason was that the cell sites were farther inland.
“When the two companies (AT&T and Cingular) merged, customers immediately had access to more cell sites. Now with completion of network integration east of the mountains the two networks can “talk” to each other. When a customer establishes a call through the closest site, the call passes seamlessly from site to site.”
This talking point is redundant and misleading. AT&T Wireless GSM, Cingular and T-Mobile customers have been sharing cell sites since GSM technology was rolled out in the US. Remember roaming charges? “Roaming” occurred when your device “camped” on a cell site, which belonged to another service provider.
Cingular is trying to make it sound like they have woven some mystical quilt of wireless togetherness, and now AT&T and Cingular GSM customers finally have the stronger coverage of two distinct networks, as opposed to the limitations of only one sad network before.
The truth is that the two companies have been going halvsies on the construction of GSM cell sites in the US since about 2001– three years before the companies closed the merger deal. Before that, both companies leased the use of the existing T-Mobile cell sites.
In reality, if anything has improved it has to do with the construction of new cell sites– not the integration of “two great networks”.
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