Hot or Not? Cingular Wireless, Unlimited Cellular to Cellular Calling?

[gogeeta13]

I saw an add for cingular wirless. It said that with selected plans(they showed a $30 one) that you get free, unlimited calling to other cingular wirless customes with that feature that are in you local calling area. Sounds pretty cool if you can get all your friends and family to sign up.

 

[gogeeta13]

here is a link to the deal, link

 

[DarkManX]

they have that option for a long time, its pretty cool and alot of people i know are useing it

 

[BigSmooth]

Well, it would be real nice in theory... but for me it would be tough to get it to work out well.

I mean different friends and family use every kind of cellular out there like Sprint, AT&T, Nextel, Voicestream, Verizon etc. And many of them are on 1 or 2 year "service agreements" that cost $$$ to get out of. Plus, you still can't call people at home for free, unless they use their cell phone at home, and many people don't get great reception inside their homes anyway.

If you have a whole bunch of friends who want a cell phone or can easily get rid of them and get new ones, then I'd say the free
Cingular<->Cingular is a great deal. Otherwise, not really.

 

[KeyzerSoze]

Lucky for me, I have friends up and down CA all on Cingular (Pac Bell). Everything is nice and dandy except that soooo many people are on their network that you often the the &quot;System Busy&quot; error. Thats the trade-off. But its still not bad enough to get me over to Sprint, AT&amp;T, Verizon, etc...Those networks, their available phones, coverage areas, and rate plans are all horrible. Not to mention that you have to pay for them phones, and in order to get a free one, you have to take an old a$$ model. If you were smart, you'd hop on over to a local chinese store (if there is one near you) and pick yourself up a new free phone and sign up for one of them cingular plans. My $.02...

 

[BigSmooth]

Keyzer (nice handle BTW), that's true, but in my case a lot of my friends have phones issued by their companies which they use most of the time. And some of their companies require them to use a specific carrier such as Nextel. I still think it would be tough to take full advantage of this.

 

[aperry]

Yeah, it is a really hot deal, if they are in your lousy state!!! As you might have gathered, I cannot get Cingular in my state. Grrrr! :|

 

[punky01]

Verizon offers the same deal.

 

[sirfergy]

I've been using Pac Bell (Cingular) for over 6 months in Los Angeles.

I works really well, and if you pay an extra $10 bucks a month, you also get free long distance. Since Cingular has weekend/evening minutes, the cell phone could replace your home phone. I'd love to do that, but to get DSL, it requires a phone line.

 

[mchurchm]

I am in a similar situation as keysersoze. I live in Las Vegas and have many friends in LA and in the bay area with cingular plans. I can call them anytime with absolutely no long distance or airtime charges. And since all of california is considered part of my local calling region, I can call them when they are at home, or call my friends without cingular plans, without any long distance charges, it just uses minutes from my calling plan. Their airtime plans are competitive with all the other providers. I also get a free service which they call &quot;InfoPak&quot;, where I get news and sports scores sent to me, and it is customizable, so I can choose which teams' scores are sent to me. The service plan also includes free text messaging (you can receive AND send messages, phone-to-phone, email-to-phone, phone-to-email, web-to-phone). They also have the best deals IMHO on phones. I got the nokia 6190 for like $40 out the door. I think now you can get the 8190 for about that price, maybe less. If you don't know anyone who has a cingular service plan, you don't have to get the unlimited mobile-to-mobile option. You can get unlimited off-peak minutes (fri 8pm-mon 8am, and tues-thurs 8pm-8am, I think), or free long distance. If later on down the road (you don't have to wait until your service contract expires), you decide you want to change your plan, you just call up a CSR, and they will switch your plan without altering the length of your contract (although they usually keep you on hold for a while). This way if your friends' current contracts expire, and they end up signing up for Cingular, you can take advantage of the unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes. <edit>Also, if they come out with a new promotion which you like better than your current service plan, you can change to the new plan in the same manner(when I called to change my plan from free weekend minutes to free mobile-to-mobile, They informed me that their new plan included 20 more anytime minutes than I was getting, and they switched me)</edit>Their CSR's have always been very helpful to me (unlike Sprint PCS's CSR's, who constantly made things difficult for me). I know this might sound like an infomercial, but I assure you I am in no way affiliated with cingular wireless, I am just completely sold on their service. Just my 2 kopeks.

 

[BigSmooth]

Good info mchurchm (although a bit hard to read )... hey, I'm not saying it's not a good deal if you are in a position to make it work for you. It's a great deal if a lot of your friends already use Cingular.

 

[hkssupra69]

Actually calling from LA to SF would be considered a long distance call with cingular, pac bell, whatever its called, so if you want free long distance you have to pay the extra 10 bucks. To my knowledge they are offering the 8190 or 8290 is it? for $99 with a plan at cingular. One problem with them though is their service sucks, can't get any reception in a building whatsoever. and that system busy message is really annoying, it happens to people who try to call a cingular customer even if they're calling from home, really irritating. I have verizon and I've been loving it. Deal is similar, 35 bucks for 250 anytime 1000 nights and weekends/1000 mtm(mobile-to-mobile). Also cingular's night time cut off is at 8PM, that's horrendous. I think ATT is at 6 or something. Verizon is at 7PM. My vote is for verizon, I used to have pac bell up til last october just in case you might consider this one argument one-sided. Those bastards wouldn't even let me cut short my contract 1 stinking day!!! they wanted to charge me the full 180 bucks. Their customer service reps are cool for the most part though but so is verizon's.

 

[dugu001]

Cingular took over my carrier PACBELL recently and my cellphone bill jumped almost 100%. Later I found out that Cingular charges air time for call-forwarding which PACBELL didn't before. I called to inquire, and learned that in addition to regular air time charge, call-forwarding is 10 cents extra per minute. This is acceptable if call-forwarding really takes up their system resource, but I really doubted.

 

[kimagurealex]

So, we have to pay for the call forward now??? damn. and I am using the MTM with my gf since she is in the LA and I am in the bay area now. what else has they(cingular) changed?

and FYI, LA stores can't provide u free 8290 anymore since cingular cut down their commission by 50%. I think the phone is around 40 dollars now with the plan and one year contract.
Alex

 

[Layzee]

Like others have been saying, it's a great deal if it works for you. I also use it to talk to my girlfriend, friends, family, etc. and with the unlimited Mobile to Mobile I use an average of 3500+ min. a month. The system busy message is annoying, but I'm saving a lot of money. Previously I had AT&amp;T (great service) and was spending about $100 month. With PacBell aka Cingular I pay a third of that using 5X as much mintues.

 

[djchowfun]

i'm with cingular right now
and can i ask
wtf is call forwarding? =]

 

[Zwingle]

I hope most of you know that Cingular is The Bells renamed.....Pac Bell, SW Bell and others. If you had problems as I have with the Bells, you will probably have them with Cingular. I love when a company gets a bad rep, so they change their name. &quot;Hey, look at us, were new, try us.&quot; Wish I could change my S.S. # when I screw up my credit. Be careful at what they tell you your plan is....read up, and don't sign contracts......cell services are falling too fast to be stuck in a contract. If you sign a 12 month contract, in 4 months you will be overpaying.

 

[waynehead]

i've been with pacbell/cingular for about 6 months now and i have nothing but good things to say. i never seem to get system busy and service is good all over la. i am on the 39.99 plan which gives 300 anytime minutes, unlimited mobile to mobile calling and messaging (great when you're bored in class) and free long distance. i pay an extra 10.00 per month to also get unlimited nights/weekends. hks makes a good point, though, about 8 pm being the cut off for &quot;nights&quot; at cingular but that doesnt really bother me. their customer service has been good to me, basically changing my plan whenever cingular changed something up for the better(added night calling when it was still 1000 night/weekend and then added unlimited, both for free). and what i think is the best thing about pac bell/cingular: nice phones. i love my 8290 and the at&amp;t's 8260 can't compete. and for an insane high budget, the 8890 is unbeatable.

 

[desibaba]

CINGULAR ..never heard of this company ..seems too shady.. Sprint PCS rules.

 

[Shredfest]

Cingular is just a bunch of smaller wireless companies (Baby Bells, SNET, etc.) combining under one new name. And Sprint PCS sux! No analog fallback when you're out of digital service range... blech. A friend of mine signed up for Sprint PCS and went back the next day and cancelled it when I told him about my Verizon plan.

 

[Agnivarsh]

Dumb question... but, with these plans (or any other wireless plans) if someone calls me do i have to pay for that time as well? or incoming calls free?

 

[SoyBoy004]

Agnivarsh: When someone calls you, the time you talk to them will eat into the minutes that you are given every month. The deal that is posted here is more or less mobile to mobile which is great because i can call other &quot;cingular&quot; users for free! LONG DISTANCE TOO! Its a good thing cuz my gf is in San Jose and that would be a long distance phone call otherwise!

 

[zblackjade]

I used Pac Bell for over a year and the reception was crappy.(in the UCLA and LA area in general) I now use AT&amp;T which is 10x better in terms of reception and rate plans. Really good deal when you sign when they have the free night and weekend minutes promotions. But Pac Bell sucked a**. always dropped my calls or had no reception if i'm in a building that's taller than 1 story.

 

[Agnivarsh]

Thanks for the info
Are there other plans that allow unlimited call recieving? I heard there were....

 

[mchurchm]

hkssupra69: I stand corrected. I can call LA under my regular calling plan, not SF. Most of the calls I make are to LA, not SF, so I haven't noticed any LD charges.