Bad service since AT&T / Cingular merger?

I really don't get it. I hear all these retorts that "do you really think AT&T went to all the cingular towers and replaced them with inferior equipment?" and the likes. I have been living in NYC for the past 4 years without a problem in service. I was thoroughly enjoying the quality of service, especially when the ATTWireless/Cingular merger happened a couple years ago. Now that the big daddy AT&T has taken over, everything has been dreadful.

Firstly, I would guestimate that roughly 50% of my calls get dropped now. THe other 50% seem like they're too short to reach the dropping point.

Second, I get so many disconnects and reconnects and searching for service pauses that I have to wait several minutes (sometimes in the neighborhood of 15-20) to make a call. This really pushed me to the edge when I tried calling the police (911) a few days ago and received call failed prompts about 20 or 30 times.

Third, bars are decreased everywhere I go on my phone (Blackberry 8700c), so I switched phones with my sister (Nokia 6102) for a week and it did nothing. The nokia has always had excellent reception, but now the most I get is 3 bars, sometimes 4 when I travel down to NJ (once a month).

I took my BB8700 to the AT&T store and they replaced the sim to a 64k, and said that the phone had updated firmware which should solve my woes, but alas 3 weeks later I have had no improvement. I thought I was alone with the sudden decrease in quality but apparently not as seen here:

(Note I have four sites with issues similar to mine but am unable to post links as I have not attained such priveleges yet.)

And I am sure more will be popping up in the near future.

If someone can please just destroy my argument by telling me a simple fix I would be much more grateful than bitter. I am looking for jobs now and this is just unacceptable, especially in areas from which I used to receive reliable service in NYC. AT&T customer service has rendered itself essentially useless, telling me that the area I am is and always was a low coverage area (BS, how did I go from 5 to 2-3, and many times 0 bars), and saying that the simm card/update is all they can do.

If they refuse to address this, the bitter side of me hopes they go down the toilet.

"Why has my service become horrible since the merger?"

Because your an idiot. All Cingular did was change their logo. Nothing else. Get your phone exchanged and that should fix it.

Also, Why the f--- are you relying on a cell phone for business contacts? Since when was any wireless service 100% reliable.

You mean the merger that happened three years ago when SBC and Bellsouth (owners of Cingular) bought at&t wireless? That was the best.

Then SBC bought AT&T and Bellsouth, and here we are.

So no sir, service did not get bad because of the name change,.

dannyry!
You're not alone.
I'm in San Diego. I and my family have a 4 phone family plan with Cingular -- now ATT.
We never had any real problems with Cingular until the last 1 month, since ATT is now the big Kahuna.
1. Constant dropped calls -- 24/7
2. Constant "SEARCHING FOR A NETWORK"

I have the Blackberry 8700c
One son and wife have Motorola Razrs
Other son has a hybrid he brought over from T-Mobile

WE ALL EXPERIENCE THE SAME ISSUES - 24/7.

I've talked to "ATT" 611 people -- they claim that nothing has changed.

Well, bullfeathers! It has changed big time.
I am about to switch to VERIZON. I'll wait another 2 months to see if this irons itself out @ ATT -- if only because it is such a hassle to change phone carriers, especially since VERIZON does not use "the chip."

NOTE: I also a Verizon phone -- a company phone. Phone service is excellent. No dropped calls whatsoever for . 2 years.

So, if you're looking for a phone carrier out there as of July 2007, I stronglly sugggest you see what others in your neighborhood are saying about the former Cingular Wireless.

SkyScout in San Diego

My 2 college age kids and I are on and have been on a Cingular (now ATT) family share plan for years and only recently have they been experiencing the "searching for signal" and increased number of dropped calls. (Can't include my own experience as I have been experimenting with a number of different phones and it could just be my ineptitude).

So I spent some quality time talking with ATT customer service reps at various stores and on the phone. What I gleaned from these conversations is that due to the mergers there has been an increased number of towers coming online recently (at least in my area- the great state of Texas) and if your phone's software hasn't been updated recently it is not aware of these towers and cannot use these towers. Until you get your software updated to include the new towers it will only find gaps in service where all the new towers are when it shifts from one older tower to find the next service tower.

He explained it better but once my kids had the software updated they found they had far less "searching" and dropped calls.

We live in NH and didn't have any cell phone service at our house until we got Cingular a few months ago. It worked great until very recently. Now service is sparse to none. It works a little better outside, but rarely works inside anymore. We switched from Sprint in order to finally have service at home, but now I wish that I had never switched because my plan with Sprint was less money.

My son called AT&T yesterday and they had him do something to his phone, but it didn't make a difference. He was told that there are some changes with the towers and this may be resolved later, but had no idea when.

I too had almost no problems at all in the area just north of Denver where I live. Now I get no service in a WIDE SWATH of town while I'm driving. I can reproduce it very well so I know I'm not imagining this. This started happening a couple months ago. Since June it's unbearable.

I came here looking for others with this problem to make sure before I cancel my service (with cause. I will not pay any termination fee).

I've been a Cingular subscriber for years, have 5 different phones on my company's plan, and all have seen the same marked drop in service. All have 3G simm cards.

Also, I have a point where I drive over a hill to office in Denver. Very good reception on either side of the hill but when I go over it I drop a call at EXACTLY the same spot. Clearly there's a problem with towers switching over.

Since they switched their logo to At&t, Cingulars service went away with their logo. I am constently losing service. I can't explain why, if they only switched logos. I know in the past At&t has been real bad and now I'm back to were I was years ago. I've never had problems with cingular till the logo change. I guess I'll have to deal with it till I can switch and put them on my do not use list with Sprint/Nextel another merger screw-up.

Bad service since AT&T / Cingular merger?

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