Jud Hardcastle wrote:
> In article <jackzwick-2ECFEC.17584329122006@news.dallas.sbcglobal.net>,
> jackzwick@yahoo.com says...
>> as part of that they say the Cingular name will go away,
>> to be replaced by AT&T
>>
> Not that my humble opinion is worth anything but I think changing (back)
> to AT&T is *stupid* (but then IMO so is not offering TDMA or GAIT with
> so much of the country still not GSM but that's another story). Couldn't
> they use "AT&T Cingular" or something?

I think that the TDMA portion of GAIT has ceased to be necessary, but
there are still a lot of areas where AMPS capability is very useful.

Last week I was in the Florida Everglades, happily roaming onto
Cingular's AMPS network from my Verizon phone, while Cingular's own GSM
customers had no coverage at all.

Yesterday I was in Yosemite, and large areas of the park, and the
northern and central roads into the park (140 & 120), have AMPS coverage
from Golden State Cellular, while only a small portion (Yosemite Valley)
has digital coverage on GSM or CDMA.

You can be sure that Cingular will turn of their AMPS networks the
instant they are legally allowed to do so, since these networks are
helping their competitors provide superior coverage, especially in the
few areas where Cingular owns both the A & B side legacy networks (such
as in South Florida). However the smaller carriers, such as Golden State
Cellular, which cover large, sparsely populated, areas will not turn off
AMPS until they are able to replace the AMPS coverage with digital.