Cingular tower vs AT&T tower reception

I get ~1 bar reception at my house which usually switches to 0 when I actually try to make a call. On some days, I get 4 bars. No apparent pattern as to why.

MY THEORY:

My friend told me that old at&t phones will default to at&t towers and cingular phones will default to cingluar towers irrespective of signal strength. What i think is happening is that I have a nearby at&t tower and a further weaker signal from a cingular tower. If my phone can make it out, I get the cingular signal which sucks, but if it isn't strong enough sometimes, the phone uses the nearer at&t tower.

My friend was a former at&t wireless customer and got good reception at my house but I started out with cingular and its as I described.

QUESTION:

Is this anywhere close to being true. If so, is there anything I can do about it?

Thanks.

What kind of sim are you using? If you have a newer 64k chip, you can call CS and ask them to do a color swap. In other words, they can set your sim to prefer the blue tower over the orange tower. If this pattern happens in places other than your home, you might have a problem with the phone itself.

Thanks a lot for the response. I have the sim that came with my cingular motorola V551 that I bought in the US. I dont' think its just the phone because my wife's samsung has the same issue.

Who is CS and is there somewhere I can read about what a color swap is? Thanks a lot for the help.

Sorry

CS is customer service. As for reading up on it, all I can suggest is google, or talking to a customer service rep about it.

Interesting. I was with AT&T for 4 years with great reception at home. Switched to a Cingular plan (job change) and had no problems for about 30 days then on Thursday all conversations are totally garbled including voicemail. I have 4 to 5 bars on my phone but can't hear a thing. I wonder if The sim card change could help with my problem. Maybe I have an old AT&T tower closer to me also.

How can I tell if I have a "new 64k sim card". Thanks again.

Open the back of you phone and find the sim card..it is labeled as a 64K. I just checked mine

All SIM cards, including the 64k SIM card, provide the same access to our networks. It is not necessary for customers to change SIM cards, unless they are converting from AT&T Wireless service to Cingular Wireless service.

If you have a 64K sim you can access both networks, depending on terrain, call volume, etc.

The ATTW v551's can do a network selection. not sure if you can do it with cingular v511's, but here's the map for ATTW.

From the stand by screen, press the Menu key.

Scroll to Settings and select by pressing the right soft key.

Scroll to Network and select by pressing the right soft key.

Scroll to Network Setup and select by pressing the right soft key.

Scroll to Type and select by pressing the right soft key.

Scroll to Manual and select by pressing the right soft key.

Select Done and select by pressing the left soft key.

The device will search for all available networks.

Scroll to the desired network and select View by pressing the right soft key.

The device will display the Network ID.

To register on the network, select Register by pressing the right soft key.

I wasn't suggesting they change sim cards, and not all devices can control network selection, including the V551. With the cingular version, you have to make seem edits to enable the network selection. At any rate, unless the poster's area has been trough intergration, they can set his sim to prefer the blue network. This can be done only with the 64k sim, not the older 32ks. If you're comfortable with modifying your phone, then go ahead with the seem edit and enable the network selection. There should be rather detailed instructions on how to do it somewhere in the moto forum.

This is fantastic. Thanks for your help. I don't know what seem edit is but I'm off and searching. Thanks.

Cingular tower vs AT&T tower reception

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