AT&T Mobility: Difference between revisions

AT&T Mobility, LLC d/b/a Cingular Wireless is the wholly owned wireless subsidiary of AT&T Inc.^[3] AT&T Mobility is the largest mobile phone company in the United States and the second largest in Puerto Rico behind Verizon Wireless PR (now becoming Claro, after Puerto Rico Telephone's adquisition by América Móvil).

Cingular currently has 61 million subscribers as of 2007, and claims to operate the largest digital voice and data network in the United States.^[4] Formerly a joint venture between AT&T and BellSouth, the company has been wholly owned by AT&T since December 2006 as a result of AT&T's acquisition of BellSouth.

The division is currently in the process of being rebranded to match its new parentage. Renaming on a corporate level occurred immediately, and consumer branding will change to "AT&T," or a variant thereof, by the end of 2007. Until all regulatory filings are approved, however, and public awareness is fostered, the "Cingular" brand will continue to be used in store signage and media advertisements during a dual-branded transition, expected to last several months. This process began January 15, 2007.^[5]

Among the services that AT&T aggressively promotes is its "Rollover" service, allowing customers to keep unused minutes from month to month on a twelve-month rolling cycle on its popular "Nation" nationwide plans.

Cingular Wireless was founded in 2001 as a joint venture of SBC Communications (now AT&T, Inc.), and BellSouth (which AT&T, Inc. acquired in 2006). The joint venture created the nation's second largest carrier. Cingular grew out of a conglomeration of 12 regional companies with Bell roots. The 12 companies included:

• Ameritech Mobile Communications, LLC*
• BellSouth Mobility, LLC*
• BellSouth Mobility DCS, Inc.
• BellSouth Wireless Data, LLC
• SBC Wireless, LLC
• SNET Mobility, LLC
• Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems, Inc.*
• Southwestern Bell Wireless, Inc.
• Pacific Bell Wireless, LLC
• Pacific Bell Wireless Northwest, LLC

Also included were some Cellular One markets, and Houston Cellular. Cingular's lineage can be traced back to Advanced Mobile Phone Service, Inc. (companies spun off from this denoted with a *), which was a subsidiary of AT&T created in 1978 to provide cellular service nationwide. AMPS, Inc. was divided among the RBOCs as part of the Bell System Divestiture.

With the exception of Pacific Bell and BellSouth Mobility DCS, the digital network consisted of D-AMPS technology. The Pacific Bell and BellSouth Mobility DCS networks used GSM technology on the PCS frequency band (1900 MHz).

After a bidding war with Britain's Vodafone PLC, Cingular announced in February 2004 that it would purchase AT&T Wireless Services, Inc., for $41 billion.

The merger was completed on October 26, 2004. The combined company had a customer base of 46 million people at the time, making Cingular the largest wireless provider in the United States. AT&T Wireless was then legally renamed New Cingular Wireless Services, Inc. [1]

First announced on June 22, 2005 Cingular Wireless announced the intention to divest its Caribbean and Bermuda operations and licenses which it acquired from the acquisition of AT&T Wireless, to Irish-owned and Jamaica-based Digicel Group under undisclosed financial terms.^{[6][7][8][9][10]}

In 2006, one year following the deal, a high ranking source allegedly close to the sale pointed the Barbados Daily Nation Newspaper towards some SEC filings made by Cingular which were said to establish an idea of the approximate sale price of the deal. According to the SEC filings Cingular was paid around US$122 million, with much of that $122m cost to Digicel going towards the purchasing of the former AT&T Wireless assets in Barbados.^[11]

In California, Nevada, Northern New Jersey and New York City, Cingular and T-Mobile USA maintained and shared a GSM-1900 network prior to the acquisition of AT&T Wireless, through a joint venture known as GSM Facilities. The network sharing agreement allowed Cingular to offer local service in northern New Jersey and New York City and T-Mobile to offer service in California and Nevada. On May 25, 2004, Cingular and T-Mobile USA announced their intention to dissolve the agreement contingent on Cingular's successful acquisition of AT&T Wireless The Cingular network was transferred to T-Mobile, with Cingular continuing work on the GSM facilities at AT&T Wireless sites. [2]

Cingular was formed through mergers and acquisitions, and as a result of these — as well as the rapid technological change in the wireless industry — Cingular operates wireless networks using many different wireless communication standards. The most widely used of these technologies is called Global System for Mobile Communications, or GSM. On top of its GSM network, Cingular operates a data network called GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and an upgrade for faster speeds called EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution).

Cingular supports a legacy D-AMPS network, and analog networks; however, in March 2006 they announced that these networks would be shut down by February 2008.^[12] As part of this effort, Cingular will charge a $5 monthly fee to those customers who still use D-AMPS-based phones.^[13]

Former networks also include various paging services and the Cingular Interactive division, which became Velocita Wireless and was recently purchased by Sprint Nextel.^[14]

In 2002, Cingular began an initiative called "Project Genesis" that involved a GSM/GPRS overlay of the entire wireless network. Project Genesis was completed by the end of 2004.

Cingular has launched a high-speed network known as "BroadbandConnect," based on UMTS and High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), to counter Verizon Wireless and Sprint's EV-DO networks. UMTS service was launched on December 6, 2005 in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, San Jose, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Puerto Rico, Austin, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore and Washington D.C. Cingular was expected to launch UMTS in all major metropolitan markets by the end of 2006.

Through a partnership with Maritime Telecommunications Network, Cingular operates a GSM 1900 MHz network on many cruise ships operated by Carnival Cruise Lines, Holland America, Island Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises, Princess Cruises, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Royal Caribbean, and Seabourn Cruise Line.

Cingular Wireless announced in December 2006 that it is teaming with cell phone maker Nokia and financial institutions Citigroup and MasterCard Worldwide to trial new phones that have MasterCard PayPass contactless payment capability. The participants in the trial will receive a Nokia handset with Near Field Communication (NFC) technology and the MasterCard PayPass payment function built in.

Cingular is known for its enterprise services, offered through its Business Markets Group, a subsidiary company of the joint venture. It acquired a considerable stable of business clients through the acquisition of AT&T Wireless in 2004, and boasts that it currently serves over 90 percent of the Fortune 100 and over 80 percent of the Fortune 500. Cingular is also the largest provider of BlackBerry service in North America.

During the first quarter of 2006, Telephia reported that during an extensive nationwide test of major wireless carriers in 350 metropolitan markets around the country, Cingular dropped the fewest number of calls across the country. Cingular in turn began aggressively advertising the "Allover Network," citing Telephia as "the leading independent research company." Telephia's report was in stark contrast to the Consumers Union publication, Consumer Reports, based on a survey of 50,000 of its members in 18 cities, which criticized Cingular for static and dropped calls.^[15] Furthermore, J.D. Power and Associates consistently ranked Cingular at or near the bottom of every geographical region in its 2006 Wireless Call Quality Study, which is based on a smaller survey of 23,000 wireless users.^[16]

Telephia, which tests wireless networks by making over 6 million calls per year in what it claims is the world's largest wireless network test program, initially refused to provide details on its study, and a spokesman for the company has said, according to the Boston Globe, that "Cingular shouldn't have even mentioned the company's name to a reporter."^[17] The research company later stated that Cingular did indeed have a "statistically-significant lower dropped-call rate than the competition across some market/time period groupings," but that Telephia had "no knowledge of the specific methodology... Cingular used to for its 'lowest dropped call' claim."^[18]

On November 20, 2005, Ed Whitacre, CEO of the newly merged SBC/AT&T, announced plans to market Cingular's service under the AT&T brand.^[19] BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher countered that the terms of the joint venture allow either party to sell the service under another name, and that he believes they will be using the brand to market to business customers.^[20] Cingular president Stan Sigman concurred with BellSouth's position, indicating that the Cingular brand would continue but be sold under the AT&T brand where offered in packages with other AT&T services, such as data and wireline telephony.

However, AT&T, Inc. announced on March 5, 2006^[21] that it would acquire BellSouth. The acquisition was finalized on December 29, 2006 when the FCC gave its final approval. According to AT&T, the company will begin the rebranding of Cingular Wireless to "AT&T". ^[22]

On January 12, 2007 AT&T announced^[23] a major rebranding transition campaign to transition Cingular to the new AT&T. The current Cingular stores, once rebranded to AT&T, will sell all AT&T products and services: wireless, landline, Internet, U-Verse, and more. AT&T will have all services under one brand. There will be no "AT&T Mobile" nor a rebirth of AT&T Wireless as many have speculated. This might lead to confusion by customers because of the fact that there would be no name difference between AT&T's landline and wireless services.

On January 14, 2007 AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) launched a new multi-media campaign to begin transitioning the Cingular brand to AT&T in television advertising and customer communications, throughout Web sites and nationwide retail stores, and on company buildings and vehicles. As part of the rebranding initiative, approximately 2,000 nationwide company-owned wireless retail outlets and store kiosks will be transitioned over the coming year with AT&T-branded signage. Additionally, the approximately 15,000 personnel in these stores and kiosks will begin wearing AT&T-branded apparel in the coming months. Customers will continue to see existing Cingular product and service names until all necessary legal and regulatory name-change filings are complete. The use of the AT&T and Cingular co-branded graphic will continue until customer awareness levels that Cingular has joined with AT&T are high. Once the transition ends, the color orange will continue to be associated with AT&T's wireless services, while the Cingular brand and mascot, "Jack", will be phased out.

On April 15, 2007 AT&T Inc. began to introduce new AT&T branded mobile phones and devices. The alpha tag (portion of phone's screen which displays the name of the network on which the phone is connected) on new phone activations will also start being "AT&T". Phones which currently display Cingular as the alpha tag will also begin to transition to "AT&T", a process expected to be completed over the next six months.

Cingular has been the sponsor of the #31 Chevrolet driven by Jeff Burton in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup series since before 2004, when NEXTEL purchased the naming rights to NASCAR's top division. Cingular and Alltel (who sponsors Ryan Newman's #12 Dodge) were allowed to stay as sponsors. NASCAR claims that the clause in their contract with Sprint Nextel does not allow Cingular and Alltel to change either the name or brand advertised (though Alltel has advertised its MyCircle plan on the #12) or the teams they sponsor.

AT&T has repeatedly requested that NASCAR allow them to advertise the AT&T brand on the #31 car, but NASCAR refuses to allow it, citing the Sprint Nextel contract. After trying and failing to get NASCAR to approve the addition of the globe logo to the rear of the car, AT&T filed a lawsuit against NASCAR on March 16, 2007.^{[24] [25]}

• On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. announced that AT&T, then named Cingular, would be the exclusive United States of America carrier for the Apple iPhone, shipping in June 2007.
• In 2005, Communications Workers of America, the union which represents over half of the then AT&T's employees, specifically recognized AT&T for excellence as a union employer, in direct contrast to competitor Verizon, which CWA singled out as an aggressive union-buster. [3]
• Cingular (the previous name for AT&T) is the wireless carrier of the street racers in Electronic Arts' street racing video games Need for Speed: Underground 2 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted. It is used to receive SMS messages from other racers. This was one of the points of criticism in Underground 2, as the Cingular logo was featured as part of the game's driving interface in Career mode, and was thought to be a dubious method of product placement other than the cars shown in the game.
• Although AT&T's network standard GSM is completely different from Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless, AT&T does offer Sprint and Verizon customers roaming on to their older AMPS network.
• As of March 31st 2007 Cingular no longer supported the TDMA technology for its GoPhone (pre-paid) customers. All GoPhone customers had to migrate to the newer GSM technology.
• AT&T offers Push to talk (PTT) service using network technology from Kodiak Networks.

On June 20, 2006 the California Court of Appeals voted 3-0 to uphold a decision by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to fine Cingular $12 million. ^[26] The CPUC found the Cingular Wireless policy from 2000-2002 of charging customers an early termination fee to cancel their wireless service without a grace period to be an unjust and unreasonable business practice. The CPUC also found that Cingular failed to tell new customers about known network problems and misled customers about the network's service and coverage.^[27] The case originated in San Diego when the non-profit Utility Consumers' Action Network (UCAN) brought customer complaints against Cingular to the attention of the CPUC.^[28]

In June 2006 tech website Engadget's mobile section posted a road map of upcoming Cingular products, this led to Cingular temporarily banning the word 'engadget' and links pointing to engadget on their customer forums.

In Q1 2006, Cingular Wireless, LLC reported in its first-quarter financial statement that regulatory complaints (complaints to the FCC, Better Business Bureaus and other regulatory or semiregulatory bodies) were reduced over 56% compared to the same quarter one year prior.

On August 25, 2005, Cingular was removed from the New York Better Business Bureau because of a large number of complaints that were not handled in a timely manner. The company is in the process of restructuring its customer care procedures and has appealed the decision.^[29] It remains a member of the BBB in other states in which it operates.

On July 20, 2005, the Utility Consumers' Action Network (UCAN), a non-profit California consumer advocacy organization, filed a complaint with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) against Cingular Wireless for the unauthorized billing of non-communications related charges.^[30] UCAN claimed that Cingular billed its customers for Jamster! and other similar ring tone services without providing customers with the notice, opt-in, and proof of authorization requirements necessary for such charges.^[31] UCAN further charged Cingular with violating numerous CPUC requirements by consistently telling customers with questions about non-communications service charges on their wireless phone bill that Cingular has no responsibility and cannot assist customers with their inquiries.^[32] UCAN and Cingular reached a settlement on October 19, 2006, which resulted in stronger notification and authorization requirements for Cingular regarding non-communications charges and also required Cingular to institute a ready means to address billing issues and cancel wireless content services.^[33]

In 2004, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reported logging more than 14,000 complaints (of 289 per million subscribers) against Cingular, the most common of which included number portability issues, over-billing, poor customer support and network reliability.

AT&T is the top carrier based on United States customer totals. Its competitors are (in order of United States customer totals):

• Verizon Wireless
• Sprint Nextel
• T-Mobile
• Alltel
• U.S. Cellular
• SunCom

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Cingular Wireless FAQ

• Cingular Wireless
• Yahoo! - Cingular Wireless LLC Company Profile
• Consumers Union on Cingular