Per Ed Stasiak:
>I know it can't be _that_ easy....
>
>So what kinda problems and additional costs might I end-up
>facing with Cingular by going this route, and what do I need to
>know and say to the (no doubt punk-ass teenage) service rep
>at their store, to avoid all kinda hassles over this?

I went through the same exercise - albeit preemptively on my part (I decided on
my own that TDMA was going away sometime in the foreseeable future).

What I found was that moving from TDMA to GSM within Cingular and keeping a
phone for myself, my wife, and one daughter was going to add $20 per month to my
phone bill - over and above what I was paying on my existing TDMA plan.

I wound up going over to tMobile. About $42 actual per month for 1,000 minutes
and call-anywhere-any-time. For the two other phones, I got tMobile prepaid
plans at $100 for 1,000 minutes to start, with the minutes rolling over from
year-to-year. Bottom line for the prepaid phones (which get used almost never)
is that they are practically no-cost after the initial $100.

In my area, tMobile's coverage is definitely *not* as good as Cingular's... but
it's good enough for what I do with it.
--
PeteCresswell