Sunday, October 30, 2005

Cingular disappoints, TMobile builds!

As I stated in my last post, Cingular has disappointed me with their service problems re:TDMA. I am not sure if there GSM is any better, although I suspect they are having capacity issues, which is leading to these dropped calls and faulty handoffs (my phone now has a tendency to drive into a new site and not hand-off to a new tower, indicative of cells over capacity).
I have it on good authority that TMobile is expanding their network thruout New England, with a fresh influx of capital from Deutches Telecom, who owns a majority of TMobile. I understand they are adding 'hundreds' of sites thruout New England over the next three years! I am happy to see them add sites to there network, because that had always been their archillies heel. Maybe after this network expansion, they will truly be able to compete with the big boys, Verizon, Cingular, and Sprint-Nextel!

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Cingular eliminating TDMA!?!

Cingular Wireless seems to be slowly eliminating it's existing TDMA towers, and running only the GSM towers in thier place. I currently have a TDMA Nokia phone that I purchased from AT&T Wireless. I was always able to recieve a TDMA signal, even after the aquisition by Cingular. My girlfriend has a GSM phone from the former AT&T. I often use my phone near an Arlington tower. Within the last two months, the TDMA signal is completely gone, and only the GSM signal remains. I originally thought they may have simply been servicing the TDMA equipment, but after a few months, have come to the realization the TDMA is gone, not to return again. I have also started to notice an increase in dropped calls in areas that I have never had that problem in before. I found it unusual that I could have a great signal in one spot, and a terrible signal in another, both where I had a good signal before, and my girlfriends GSM phone has a perfect signal. I understand that Cingular is eliminating the TDMA network, but I was told it would be 'many years' before I signed a two year contract. I am actively looking for other service/service provider. If anyone has any information on this (such as a Cingular employee), please feel free to post it here.