I have TMO (personal) and Cingular (business). Within the past year or so, I've noticed that TMO coverage has significantly improved. At this point I'd say if I hit a dead spot it's usually dead for both. The few times one works and not the other, it's been about 50/50. TMO customer service and pricing is far superior to Cingular. Assuming coverage where you need it, I'd go with TMO hands down. They have a really good coverage map on their site, btw - should show you exactly where you'd have issues.

T-mobile actually roams on Cingular (or whatever 850/1900Mhz network is available) in areas where they have no coverage. They're quite stringent about the coverage boundaries so in places where coverage overlaps you won't be able to use Cingular. I was astonished at how granular they can make the ability to roam... down to the cellsite.

If you're going into the boonies, you *really* need an 850 capable handset. In most areas, you don't need one, but even when driving long distances... it's necessary to ensure coverage in as many places as possible.

Bottom Line: T-Mobile for price, customer service, and coverage that includes Cingular coverage. Now what if you don't find a T-Mobile phone you like? Buy one somewhere else that is unlocked?

I have a Blackberry 8100 (pearl) through tmobile and have been quite happy with it. I've been with them since 2000, back in the voicestream days and their coverage seems to get better every year. One thing to note though, is that they are terrible in getting software updates out on their phones. The new blackberry OS has been out for months on the Cingular 8100, but nothing for tmobile.

Yep... that's what I do. I haven't used a T-mo branded handset since they were voicestream.

TMO user since day of Omnipoint.... ^

But one place they're still behind is Grand Central Station, NY. Everybody w/ Verizon or Cingular gets signal on the main platform and even tunnel at times. I've actually tested with a second phone using international SIM/nbr from various Asian countries, and although nothing with TMO, my second phone gets Cingular signal.

Calling Cingular (now ATT) customer service is like calling the cable company. You are on hold for 30 or more minutes only to then be transferred repeatedly and disconnected. I switched to TMobile 6 months ago and the difference is like night and day. TMobile is also saving me 20% over Cingular ATT particularly with their "My Faves" program. I will never go back to Cingular ATT.

I agree that TMobile is a better value than Cingular. Cingular at the moment has better international data packages than TMobile. I wish Tmobile would copy them, or better yet, adopt the roaming packages they are currently rolling out in Europe.

I have been with TMo for a little over 1 month. I am VERY pleased with TMo. The customer service is outstanding and my cost is significantly lower than Cingular.

I live in what most would consider the boonies and with some minor exceptions have not had any issues with coverage. I have noticed that my phone roams more than it did with Cingular, but my plan covers it so I don't care. I also get much better coverage at my home, especially in my basement.

What I really wish the carriers would start offer service plans that allow you to select your desired services from a menu within a price range.

I love my Cingular but I have heard very mixed reviews from others. A big difference is the level of customer service you get based on what kind of customer you are. It's kind of like when you call the airline and you get either the Plat desk of the no status desk and what they will do for you.

I get great customer service but some people haven't gotten what they wanted. I have been with them for like 5 years, have 4 lines and my bill is like $175 a month (2 blackberry plans, 2 text messaging plans, 4 voice lines, lots of minutes)

I opened an account with T-Mobile in January. While I've had a few technical issues, most if not all of them have been caused by the local partner (Dobson). T-Mobile has been very helpful every time, even when it's not their fault. I'm roaming in ANC, and they're aware of that and don't mind at all. I pay $55/mo. for myFaves, 300 anytime minutes and free n/w, and it works perfectly for me. I also have free roaming anywhere in the US. It's been a great experience for me.

After 5 years w/ Sprint, 1 year w/ Verizon (hate them with a passion), 1 year w/ T-Mobile - I am now with Cingular. I travel to very rural spots and have found that Cingular works much better for me than T-Mobile did.

CDMA has it's advantages as well so I kept my Sprint plan going as a backup. (3 phones - $60/month for all three)

For me: Cingular > T-Mobile.

I'm a gadget freak as well and the fact that the iPhone will be on Cingular is a plus for me as well.

how to turn off voice mail?
 

Hi,

How do you turn off your voicemail?

Thanks,

Are you sure about this? I'm a new Cingular customer and have looked at the website and talked to quite a few customer service people about the per minute charges while abroad and no one has mentioned that most inbound calls from the U.S. are twice the stated per minute charge. I have seen where it is stated that retrieving voicemail while abroad is twice the per minute charge but not inbound calls.

I was hit with this fee in 2004 when I was in Tanzania. I turned my phone off most of the time, but turned it on once a day simply to see if there were voicemails. Every deposited voicemail was build at e.g. an international call to Tanzania and a conditional call forward back home. Even when the phone was off.

Call Cingular before you leave and have them turn your voicemail off.

Stu

Disable call forwarding.

Thanks Dubai Stu, and I will certainly do that! What I was confused about however is the statement by DBruce49 where he says "as are most inbound calls from the United States". I am taking that to mean that any call from the U.S. that I answer while I am in Europe will cost me twice the per minute charge as stated on Cingular's website, i.e. the stated charge for incoming calls from the U.S. while I am in France is 1.29 per minute but it will be twice that amount according to him. It looks like he is talking about both incoming calls that one answers and also calls that go to voicemail. I'm probably not reading it correctly and he just means calls going to voicemail but I just wanted to clarify and at this stage of my life I seem to need clarification more often! ;)

And here's a clear case of where Cingular is wrong and is ripping people off. The *only* time you should be charged this way is if your phone is on and rings, and the call is then redirected back to your VM.

When your phone is off, the call is never sent abroad. Once it stops updating the Visitor Location Register, after 5-30 minutes, calls go straight to voicemail and never go international.

I certainly don't pay such bills on T-mo. Also, you needn't keep the phone off to avoid the voicemail charges. Simply set the phone up to unconditionally divert all calls to voicemail and you won't be charged. If people need you, have them text you.

Again, the ONLY time you should receive such bills is if your phone rings and the call is subsequently diverted to voicemail. It's not necessary to answer in this case. But if the phone is truly off, you shouldn't be charged. Nor do you need to go without voicemail!

It's only if you have an incoming call that is subsequently diverted to voicemail. If this happens, from a cost standpoint you'd be better served to hit send, and then quickly hang up on the call if you can't talk!

It is not Cingular it is the roaming carrier. They don't release the phone from the system when it is switched off. As a matter of fact, at this year's Gitex (the Middle East's largest tech show), they were actively demonstrating technology aimed at enhancing roaming revenue by increasing the time your phone remains registered on the roaming network and using a software trick that would slow your phone down on registering on a competing carrier.

Under this approach, if you landed at Frankfurt, powered your phone back up for one call to tell your wife that you made your connection, and then shut it down and boarded at plane to the US, you'd be paying these roaming rates until you powered your phone back up in the US.

As annoying as it is, you need to either disable your voicemail or hardforward (e.g. not conditional) all calls to voicemail. If you let the system send it to voicemail if you don't answer, you will hugely increase your roaming bill.

This is another reason why I use a roaming SIM when traveling. They have written a special algorithm to send calls to voicemail that is not dependent on a conditional call forward.

I see. That makes sense. If the VLR keeps reporting you as active even though you aren't, you will indeed stay registered until you show up elsewhere and calls will come through. An unconditional divert seems as the best way to go considering you can set those while roaming at no charge. One just has to remember to do it!

Something different but with the same goal (roaming revenue) happened to me quite some time ago. I've always wondered how it was possible.

Back in ancient history, I was in Prague using an Omnipoint SIM in a Motorola L7089 (should give you an idea of how long ago this was!) For some reason, if the phone registered on Radiomobil, I no longer could see Eurotel in network scans! The reverse was not true. The same thing happened with a Nokia 6150 I was carrying as well. The only way to get Eurotel back was to carry the phone into the metro, set manual network select, and manually select Eurotel upon exiting.

To this day, I have no idea how they did it nor have I ever seen anything like it anywhere else. I suppose it could've been a bug but I always believed it was a way to keep roamers locked in.

What SIM do you use for roaming? I have a post-paid HKCSL SIM that I keep for visits to places where T-Mo charges $4.99/minute but would rather use something better. I've had it for forever so simply haven't gotten rid of it out of inertia.

I'm now back on the board and I'll try to explain the "double minute" situation that people were questioning. This happened initially on my first trip overseas with Cingular. I phoned Cingular after receiving a huge bill upon my return. The CS person agreed that it was not spelled out, even in the fine print, but was evidently happening is that when someone in the US calls me while I'm in Europe, Cingular has no control as to which European networks the call is routed on. If it is routed on a network with which Cingular does not have a preferential agreement, Cingular has to pay a higher fee and hence charges me the other carrier's fee plus its own roaming fee. I think that in some cases the fees from the other carrier didn't appear with the Cingular roaming one. The bills were a mess (and still are). As I was a new customer, the CS gave me a credit for 1/2 the charges and gave me 300 bonus minutes per month (which I still have).

As for turning off my voice mail, I believe I've always called Cingular.

I'm heading over in two weeks, and will be doing the same but in addition, I now have a SkypeOut account which I'll use on my ultraportable which has built in WiFi (and Bluetooth for my headset). The cost is 2.1 cents per minute, plus a 3.9 cent setup, for calling most industrialized countries -- from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Note that when calling European cell phones, there is a still charge of something like 20 cents a minute no matter what phone you are using to call.

Just came across this article in Information Week.

title: Telecom Leads In Race To The Bottom Of Customer Service

bottom line, all the telecom companies suck in customer service. take your pick.

(for comparison, the nationwide average for all industries is 75.2%, so rather than saying they've improved, I'd say they just got less bad).

My experience with my tmobile phone has been the pits for coverage anywhere but the most urban of locales. On the other hand, my Cingular phone has almost as good coverage as my Verizon phone did.