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yet another Microsoft blogger

# Tuesday, May 25, 2004

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AT&T Wireless thinks I'm dumb

Today I got a letter from AT&T Wireless telling me how cool GSM America is (some new short lived effort on their part to stop hemorrhaging customers, till the Cingular deal is final). Here are the benefits:

  • Double the coverage
  • Improved signal strength, even in buildings, for enhanced call quality
  • No roaming charges from coast to coast
  • No domestic long distance charges

“One of the way we've improved our service is by making special arrangements with other carriers. So although you might see the name of another carrier on your phone's screen, you will not pay roaming charges.”

Translation:

Cingular just purchased us. If you live under a rock and don't know this, then check out our clever marketing in this message. You have nothing new. We aren't telling you who this special arrangement is with because we want to keep our name and launch a new service with Sprint using CDMA. At that point we're sure to have confused the hell out of you.

Lets look at the bullet points.

Double the coverage - not really, since there is 80% overlap in their existing coverage.

Improved signal strength, even in buildings, for enhanced call quality - um, not for me. I don't have an 850 MHZ phone, so net change is zero unless I get a new phone.

The last two I already have... it's called a nation plan.

Posted Wednesday, May 26, 2004    Permalink    Comments [2]  View blog reactions

 

Wednesday, May 26, 2004 12:37:56 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
"We aren't telling you who this special arrangement is with because we want to keep our name and launch a new service with Sprint using CDMA"

Well to be fair they're not really the same company. AT&T Wireless is a completely separate company that's always had to pay a licensing fee to AT&T for the branding and name. That's why they kept pushing MMode... they wanted to change the name of the company to that eventually. Oops.
Dennis Cheung
Wednesday, May 26, 2004 9:42:27 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
and to be fair, until the deal with cingular is complete AT&T wireless (as noted above is different than the AT&T deal with sprint) no alignment can occur.

also looking at the agreements. don't forget T-mobile in those agreements also and other 3rd parties. which does give AT&T wireless that 50% coverage that they claim.

Won't argue with the 850 mhz claim though. That would be anouther area where improved coverage is there. as there are seaveral areas are 850 only.

anon
anon
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