My son has one of the phones on our Cingular family plan. He called to let me know that he has misplaced his phone. He wants to not suspend the service until he has more time to see if it will surface.

My question is this: his sim was purchased when Cingular was AT&T ... the first time.

If I want to buy a new sim card from them and put it into one of the Cingular/ATT phones - or an unlocked phone for that matter:

- will he be able to keep his current phone number ( guessing yes)
- will we have to extend contract?

Contract extension is a real problem because the plan I got some years back is just WAY better than anything on offer now.

Thanks for any help.

You should have no trouble just getting another sim card from cingular. You may have to bring the 'new' phone to them to get it all programmed. Since you are only changing your equipment without cingular providing anything but a sim card, there should not be any need to modify your existing contract. If you wanted to purchase a new phone from them, with all the rebates and hidden stuff, then you might have to do a contract change. The corporate-owned stores seem to have greater flexibility beyond that of the 'agent' stores.

I strongly suggest you call them and have it disabled for the time being. If it was lost/stolen, a whole lot of airtime can be burned up, which could be your responsibility. After a whole lot of rigamarole, you may get the charges, if any, reversed, but why subject yourself to that hassle? Treat this like a lost/stolen credit card. If your son finds his phone, it would be a simple task to change back to it.

Thanks.

I agree that he should suspend his account, but he is afraid of missing a call to his voice mail and wants to wait a bit. He understands that he will have to pay for any charges.

We have been checking the activity on his phone and there is nothing since he last used it. I know there can be a lag, but in checking my own number, several of my call in and out are already log and have been within minutes.

He may have lost it at the baseball game (where the Giants also lost) so he is hoping that it will show up in lost and found.

Call Cingular and explain the situation. All that is happening here is a specific phone is being deactivated, not the number. When I switched phones a few weeks ago, I was offline for about an hour. No actual equipment tied to my number. When the new phone was activated, a voicemail and a few text messages immediately appeared.

The way it will probably work, in my experience, is that you will go a few days with no activity if it was picked up, then in the span of a few hours it will be constant calls all over the world, or roaming from someplace very far away.

Of course, it could just be lost.

I would have them deactivate the sim, and issue a new one. If you know the phone is missing, should somebody have it, you may be responsible for those calls, and it won't be cheap (and you are assuming they will deactivate it quickly enough).

i agree with what he says. and the down time would be insignificant. just go to
a store.

FWIW, I lost a T-mobile phone last year - called them and asked if they could tell me which cell tower the phone was registered on. They did (unfortunately, the location confirmed my fear - that I'd dropped my phone in the street in NYC).

Do the Cingular stores still have Cingular Blue SIMs? I went to a store early this year to get a blank backup SIM and was told they don't have any. A quick check on ebay shows some on auction.

All is well!

My son called the ball park (AT&T Park no less ) and they had his phone in lost and found. He went back today and has it.

BTW, Cingular said that they would suspend the account temporarily to give time to see if the phone would show up. They could not set it to receive calls into email - both incoming and outgoing would have to be shut down. The phone is not the problem. The sim card is. They have no way to shut down a phone. In fact I gave my son my last phone when I bough a new one in June. He merely put his sim into it. Though locked, it accepted his sim because it was from the same carrier.

I tried to tell my son that I thought he should suspend service. He refused. He was made very aware that HE would be responsible for any charges and that they might be very considerable if the card was used as cordelli warns by a group of people making calls in rapid succession to places far way.

Try to tell a 21 year old something!

Anyway, thanks to all for your advice! And thanks to the cleaners at AT&T Park!

Get a new SIM is easy and you can aoid the charge with a friendly cingular shop by sayign you did nto get a SIM yet.
Number stays no new contract required unless you geta discounted phone - no need there are plenty of cheap deals
BTW - I woud not wait.... blow the SIM and geta new one otherwise you may find yoru bill sky rocket unless his sim was PIN protected (unusla in the US)

Glad you found the phone. In case anybody else finds this thread while searching... another option is to buy a Cingular prepaid phone from target/wal-mart wherever. My bro just destroyed his T-mobile phone, and he was able to get a replacement phone from target for much less money than buying it at a T-mobile store. You would still need to contact your carrier to get a replacement SIM card under this scenario.