AT&T phone upgrade

Is AT&T now Cingular or not? The ads make it seem so. Nice of you to share that info though. You have more patience than I do to go through hanging on the phone for 3 1/2 hours!

Cingular was bought out by AT&T. Yes, they are one and the same.

Heh heh, after being disconnected several times, 2 power outages that caused the call to be dropped, supervisors that kept saying that they didn't ship to foreign countries, and so so much more, I guess I became a little obsessed with getting my free phone. 😀

Cingular was not bought by AT&T. They simply changed the name to better match the parent company - AT&T. Nothing else, aside from the name, has changed.

3 1/2 hrs is a long time to wait for a solution. Guess your patience paid off - thanks for the advice!

Dear bluwater
AT&T did indeed buy Cingular as well as BellSouth and other former relations. Once again our federal government has encouraged big business to run rough/shod over us all. Instead of protecting consumers our current administration has allowed the" reforming" of formerly disbanded business empires.

We now have price fixing and and executive power grabs in most every industry. It is time once again to put the giant "tela" company as well as the billionaire bandits who sell our pharmaceuticals and insurance back in their place. Under control.

It will only get better when someone else is governing this country.

Time for a change

AT&T did not buy Cingular.

Actually, originally, the opposite was true. Cingular bought AT&T Wireless from AT&T Corp. about 10 years ago.

AT&T - aka Ma Bell after divestiture in 1984, was the LD arm of the former Bell system.

The Bell System was broken up after an order by Judge Green - creating smaller regional systems. called Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC)

-Bell South became an RBOC in the Southeast
-SBC became a RBOC in the Southwast after several other designs as Southwestern Bell, Pac Bell, etc
-AT&T became the Long Distance arm and the parent of the RBOCs - not an official parent, but in theory
-Cingular was formed as a Wireless company jointly owned by the eventual Bell South and SBC.

2 years ago, to much fanfare, SBC BOUGHT AT&T (the child bought the parent)

Then, they named the new combined company "AT&T" because it was a more powerful brand.

They tried to change the name of Cingular to AT&T, but it was still jointly owned by Bell South.

So, Bell South and SBC, which was then called "The New AT&T", agreed to merge (which is very different from an acquisition).

Once they merged, the Bell South portion also became AT&T.

So, with all of the parents being AT&T, it only made sense to CHANGE THE NAME of the Wireless child company to AT&T.

They only changed the name. The only one that was bought was AT&T (AT&T Wireless was bought around 1999 and AT&T Corp and all entities were bought in 2005), ironically.

Trust me on this one.

I understand your concern about fixed pricing - but it is less releveant with IP technology convergence for voice communications. Telcos are competing less with each other anyway - and more with cable companies and broadband phone providers, and, on the immediate horizon, media firms. AT&T is seeking a position as the entertainment leader. Traditional phone service is not the focus, which is why the gov't didn't mind agreeing to bringing these divorced parties back together again. Competiton for a penny phone call isn't the concern - you shoud see what's on the horizon - competition is alive and well. The public just isn't seeing it yet because the technology is so new.

I felt badly for getting so granular in my response about a lot of things most people on here could care less about.

So, to interject a little humor and lighten this up, here's a comedian's version of what I was saying above - a video clip from the hilarious Colbert Report.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtFtcp4mNzA

Dear blu

Thank you for helping me to better understand Who owns what. I was a bit confused.

A special thanks for the "YouTube Colbert video". I now understand with more clarity the changes that have taken place in the telecom industry. or not....

thanks again

Anytime you want more useless trivia about the telecom reform act and the fall-out, give me a jingle! 😉

Has anyone else had this problem trying to upgrade their phone online? I have emailed and called AT&T asking why they do not ship to the US Virgin Islands? I continue to be told that they don't ship outside the US. They do ship to Puerto Rico. I have spent hours on the phone with them and finally got the name and address of the president to write a letter to. Anyone else want to write a letter asking them to add the VI to the drop down menu?

As an aside when AT&T customer service called at home and I wasn't there my husband said I couldn't come to the phone because I was so upset because my neighbors where fighting and dying in Irag and AT&T kept telling me I was in a foreign country. LOL

Donna, When I applied for new service and bought 2 phones, I was not able to do it online. I called their customer service and they set me up over the phone. I wasn't able to get the free phones, but it was only 20.00, and everything else was the same. Still a lot easier than going into the store here. Plus, the phones here would have been more that 20. The phones arrives in 3 days, free shipping.
There really should be more emphasis on world geography in the schools. It's amazing how many people don't know where we are!

I tried to do it on the phone and they wouldn't ship to the VI.

I just did it over the phone this weekend (after realizing they don't have VI on the drop down menu on the web site) and after nearly an hour and a half and many supervisor overrides to deal with my physical address/billing address/shipping address (all are different), the transaction was completed. I should be getting my phone today or tomorrow.

I have had no problems having AT&T ship phones to the VI. Shipped them FedEx (their expense) and they arrived promptly.

Jim

they've shipped me replacement phones under warranty via FedEx, also.

Donna,
Isn't this frustrating?! When I tried online without success, I called the 800 # on their website. The people at that number couldn't help me, but after a little conversation about being outside the cont. US, in the Puerto Rico region, etc., they gave me another number. The rep that answered had experience already with the VI and got me set up in no time. I looked for the number, but sorry, can't find it.

Do any of you have recommendations for "smart phones" through AT&T? Our contract is up in Jan and I get to pick a new one.

has anyone here ever used a satelite phone like the iridium one?

we used an iridium phone during our sailboat relocation journey. Very much a pain to use, but it was available if necessary. Our cell phones worked much of the trip, even through Central America, and the $4 per minute international rate wasn't worse than the iridium satellite phone. We mostly received text messages on the satellite phone and we could hook it up to the computer to receive or send text email in bursts when our Cingular air card didn't get a signal to use with our laptop computers.