Bring multiple numbers under Cingular Family Plans

My question is rather simple, I am just wondering if it can be done given the situation.

Ok, over Thanksgiving my mom and I think that we were able to convince my dad to move us onto a Family Plan, since that would save us money. That is all well and good, but here are the issues:

My dad has Nextel.
My mom now has Cingular Orange GSM GoPhone PAYGO (did have AT&T GoPhone).
My sister has AT&T TDMA Free-2-Go.
My brother would need to be included (his first phone).
I have AT&T TDMA Free-2-Go.

My dad's number would need to be the primary number on the account.
I am aware that TDMA Free-2-Go is being discontinued, which is partly why we want to do this now.

Here is my question: Can we bring all of these numbers in under one Family Plan with Cingular?

I would think that we need to go to a corporate store to have all of this done right?

And since 2 of the numbers are on TDMA, would we need to migrate to GSM first? Would that make things any easier? Or can they do this w/o needing to migrate?

Sorry for all of the questions, but I am trying to gather as much information as possible before we go through with this. Thanks!

yes. the most lines you can have on a familytalk plan is 5.

your dad would need to go to a cingular store (retailer or corporate) and he would need to bring a copy of his Nextel invoice with him to give some account info.

you and your sister need to go to a store to get your number migrated from tdma to cingular postpaid. get the phones, sign the contract.

your brother would simply be a new activation. i.e. sign up for new service, get new phone.

your mom would need to go to the store to sign up for a postpaid account.

if the familytalk plan is going to be under your dad's name, your brother's line will need to be done by your dad.

you, your mom, and sister will need to do a transfer of service and put your account names into your dad's.

it would be easiest to go to a single store and get it all done by one person since there's a few different steps.

Hey steva, thanks for your reply.

Just a few problems:

My sister and I can not migrate to postpaid b/c for one my sister is a minor and ergo can't sign a contract. My brother is also a minor and so he can not sign a contract either. I can't migrate to postpaid b/c I have no credit history. The reason that my mom is on prepaid to begin with is b/c her and my dad's credit is miserable. My dad only has Nextel b/c he had it from his last job and just continued using it following his lay off.

I appreciate your input, but do you happen to know of another way that we could do this w/o migrating us all to postpaid?

And would you happen to know how much of a deposit Cingular might require us to put down on a 2yr agreement since my parent's credit is bad? Does it vary depending on the credit score?

Thanks for all of your help.

Well, your dad would actually sign for all of your siblings, the minors wouldn't have to sign anything. There is no such plan as a family plan where everyone is not all on the same post paid account. That is the point of it being a family plan. You all share from the same minute pool and get the free in network calling.

I've never heard of them requiring a deposit. If most of you bring your own Cingular phones into the deal, instead of all getting new phones with the signed contract, you might be able to forego the deposit, because Cingular would have a lot less invested in your family.

I never understood why if you bring your own phone into a plan, Cingular still makes you be in a contract to get the special "family deal"

Well, my mom would have her current phone that she could bring in plus the new phone they gave her when she migrated, so there are two. They just bought a GoPhone package from Radio Shack for my little brother for Christmas (the reason this all came up) and if need be can be taken back.

My dad would need a new phone, my sister would need a new phone, my brother could use my mom's phone that she got from migrating, my mom would continue to use her old AT&T phone, I would get my own phone off eBay.

So we would be bringing in 3 of our own phones out of 5.

I am not so worried about actually getting the phones, what I am worried about is how is this going to work on the back end. Since two of us are TDMA, one is an outside porting in, one is already GoPhone, and one would be a new number entirely.

I realize that is a lot of info, but I really would like to know how to get this accomplished.

Thanks.

So does anyone have any other suggestions for me?

I'd much rather hear y'all's ideas first before we go to Cingular.

i'm a little confused. you want to go on a familytalk plan? 'cause all familytalk plans are postpaid only. if you stay on prepaid, you can't go on a familyplan

Yes, we do want to go onto a Family Plan postpaid.

My question is can we be moved onto the same Family Talk Plan directly? Without us having to each move to individual postpaids first (as that is not an option anyway)? Taking into account that two of us are TDMA?

I am sorry this is confusing. I just want to get all the details before we go and do this.

but it will all need to be new service. basically it would look like this...

your dad goes into the store to port his number, sign up your brother's phone (in his name. your bro doesn't really have anything to do with this. your dad will just give him the phone after he gets it signed up.)

if you, your sis, and mom want to keep the same phone numbers, then you'll need to put them in your dad's name before he can migrate them into the familytalk plan.

if the numbers aren't important, your dad can go in and activate new service for everyone one the familytalk plan under his name.

Hey Steva11 thanks for your info!

Thanks answering my questions but I still have some more for you.

To change the names on the account, would it be sufficient to go to our respective online account managers and change the name that shows up there? Would that change the names on the accounts in the main system? Or do we need to call in or go to a store to do that?

Also, would my sister and I be able to migrate directly from our current TDMA Prepaid Free-2-Go, to the GSM Family Talk plan? At the same time? Or would my sis and I need to migrate to GSM Prepaid first before we could switch to the family plan?

And will the rep at our local corporate store be able to do all this for us all at once?

The last question I ask because when we went to get my mom migrated from AT&T GoPhone to Cingular GoPhone back in August, it took them 3 hours and 4 different reps to transfer 1 number.

Thanks for all of your help I really do appreciate it.

Bring multiple numbers under Cingular Family Plans

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