Cingular?

[xfiftyfour]

then Apple will have to choose between unlocking the phone or abandoning the idea altogether. And nobody wants that.

What I keep trying to say and what you keep ignoring is that it's not Apple's decision to just unlock the phone. Cingular is the one demanding that Apple give them exclusive rights, and because Apple needed Cingular in order to make the iPhone happen, they had to agree.

 

[furious]

Are the people who use the phone for personal and business (use the phone a lot) experiencing more drops outs. I am not making a idiotic statement (of cause they would). It is just that Cingular may be doing con job and through software (or another way) dropping out the phone coverage.

In Australia we had a problem in rural areas with 56k internet were the carrier was dropping out the service to get the local call cost to reconnect. Now this could be my conspiracy theory frontal lobe talking. But is something to think about.

p.s. This is the reason my parents got BB. Yeah for doggy operators.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I do have to give cingular props for doing this deal. It a smart move by cingular part to do that deal and if they didnt it would of been a very dumb move bussiness wise Cingular knows that they can easily steal the apple die hards from the other carriar with the iPhone. Those are the people who will buy anything apple makes.
Apple has a huge following that will give up a lot just to get their products. Top that off Cingular is banking on the iPod bring in a lot of people as well who think iPhone is a iPod that is a phone and they will switch over to Cingular.

Cingular knows even if they have poor service in that person area people will switch just to get the iPhone.

Personally I do not think some one should switch from a cell company they like just to get one phone that is going to cost an arm and a leg to get. I honestly do not see the point of getting a phone like that if really the main reason you have a cell is to be a phone. The iPhone has a ton of stuff extra on it. I would give a word of advice to any one thinking about it. What do you currently use you phone for and would you really use any of those extras on it. If the answer is no. Then the iPhone is not for you. It will be a huge waste of money. There are cheaper and better phones that will cover your needs. The iPhone has way to much stuff to just be a great cell phone. It a good smart phone but smart phones are never good as a cell phone. They combine to other words and reduce you device by a little.

 

[Saluki Alex]

It's a shame that Apple didn't (ok, they probably did but nevertheless) check with J.D. Power and Associates and Consumer Reports on Cingular's performance. Cingular rates almost at the bottom in everything while Verizon and Alltel are at the top. Contrary to the "leading independent research company" saying that they have the fewest dropped calls.

I pulled this of Wikipedia:
During the first quarter of 2006, Telephia reported that during an extensive nationwide test of major wireless carriers, Cingular Wireless dropped the fewest number of calls across the country. Cingular in turn began advertising with more aggression the "Allover Network" citing Telephia as "the leading independent research company." This was in stark contrast to the Consumer Unions published "Consumer Reports" which slammed Cingular for static and dropped calls and J.D. Power and Associates' findings. (J.D. Power and Associates consistently puts Cingular in the bottom (or near the bottom) of their "overall customer satisfaction" list.)
Telephia initially refused to provide details on its study, and a spokesman for the company has said, according to the Boston Globe, that "Cingular shouldn't have even mentioned the company's name to a reporter."[12] The research company later stated that Cingular had a "statistically significant lower dropped-call rate than the competition across some market/time period groupings," but that Telephia had "no knowledge of the specific methodology... Cingular used to reach the nationwide 'lowest dropped call' conclusion."

I can understand Apple's rationale since Cingular has the largest customer base (59 million), but in reality, it's only got about 1 - 2 million more customers than Verizon (57 million).

While I will admit that Verizon does cripple its phones, I'd hedge my bets that they wouldn't have done that to the iPhone since it would be such a big deal to get it on their network.

The only thing that I can think of is that they went GSM so they could sell it globally, which does make sense, and since they went GSM they went with Cingular because they have such a large consumer base compared to other U.S. GSM companies.

Ok, my rant is over.

 

[gonnabuyamac]

I am glad they went with Cingular. I've had a fantastic experience with Cingular - much better than my experience with Sprint & Verizon. I might just be my area, but I never drop calls with Cingular. I did with Verizon and Sprint about every other call.

So, it's probably different from area to area, but the fact that they went with Cingular made my day.

 

[TEG]

As someone who travels from coast to coast on a regular basis, I love Cingular. I have friends that travel with me and they have Sprint and Verizon and in many places, but not all, when they have no signal, I do, and I've never lost signal while they still had it. I did have a problem with a software update a few months ago, all I had to do was reseat the SIM card and repower the phone.

Also, I can not get over the problems with CDMA and locking you into a provider because of the phone. With the SIM cards of GSM phones you can easily change phones or providers.

I'll bet that within a few months of the iPhone's release you'll be able to purchase unlocked phones for use on other GSM networks.

It is also possible that in the future, after the exclusivity agreement has expired, there may be VZ, S/N, or T-Mobile versions of the iPhone.

TEG