On 3/21/2011 6:45 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:

> "Cingular" didn't have a name pre-Cingular, AFAIK.

Pretty sure you're right about that. My mom, a BellSouth customer,
simply had mobile service from BellSouth, there was no separate name for
the mobile phone business.

I thought the Cingular name was amusing because it was so close to the
asthma drug, Singulair, introduced in 1998, three years before Cingular
was formed.

Cingular got a bad reputation in the west because it was the old Pacific
Bell 1900 MHz GSM service, which was very poor in terms of coverage and
capacity.

Remember GAIT phones (AMPS, TDMA, GSM)? In Cingular's AMPS/TDMA regions
they were sold as a bridge product during the GSM transition. In the
western region Cingular never openly sold them. I contacted Cingular's
western regional headquarters to ask about GAIT phones, and received a
very nice e-mail that a) explained that GAIT phones would not solve
Cingular's network issues in California because even though they
supported TDMA, there was no roaming agreement with any TDMA carrier
(ATT Wireless), and b) the GAIT phone were only intended for use in
Cingular regions that were converting from TDMA/AMPS to GSM, and c) if
the phones did roam onto other TDMA/AMPS carriers there would be roaming
charges.

Cingular ended up paying large fines to California due to their service
issues. They fought it for a while, then decided to pay the fines, while
declaring that they had a strong case for appeal.