The Unofficial Cingular Weblog

The Blackberry 8700c hit retail stores today. Perhaps we will have a review in the coming days, just depends how bored we are. In case you haven't been able to tell that we are biased against the rebirth of the alphanumeric pager, lets just tell you now: We hate BlackBerrys.

Speaking of reviews, expect an in depth one very soon on the Sierra Wireless HSDPA/UMTS card. We will be driving all over the DFW area to get some juicy statistics.

The new firmware update for Cingular and Former AT&T Treo 650's includes several added key features. An update of Versamail includes an updated ISP list for easy POP setup. Keeping with e-mail updates the blazer browser now has support for gMail attachment downloads. Bluetooth has been tweaked for better performance with motorola headsets as well as moto BT speakers. Car-Kit fiends will be happy to see an update to the way the Treo handles bluetooth carkits. We are happy to see a second update to call quality, the first was a great improvement over the first firmware but it was still slightly lacking. The voice quality tweaks are reported to reduce audible echo. There is now a call fail beep like that which is available on most normal handsets. Power consumption has been tweaked with a change in the screen power timeout during calls reducing it to 30 seconds, if you updated to 1.15 however this will remain unchanged.

Cingular specific updates include an upgrade for voicemail notification/integration. Like the 1.15 update the 1.17 includes the GetGood application for downloading and installing GoodLink.

Third-party software included on the Palm installtion CD also gets upgraded for compatibility with the new firmware release. Documents To Go is updated to 7.0.0.5, Pocket Express to 1.3 and the space game Zap!2016 to 1059.

Like all firmware updates you will need to backup all your data prior to flashing.


This is the second recent update/tweak for the Tero 650 by palm. We are glad to see that they are actually keeping up with the handset, unlike some of their other smartphone iterations in the past. At the end of October Palm announed a redesigned sim card tray to reduce the amount of resets and seemingly random power-offs. If the Treo was bumped in a certain way, the sim card would loose contact with the phone causing the wireless radio to turn off and making the Treo reset. The new sim card included a rib to keep the card pressed against the internal contacts.

To download the firmware update visit palm at: http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/treo650updater/cingular.html

To get a free replacement sim card tray (for users who purchased their handset prior to 7/31) visit Cingular at: http://supportcingular.atgnow.com/cng/tutorials/KB53306.html

Cingular is reported to unveil holiday rate plans starting the day after Thanksgiving. Apparently they will be offering a T-Mobilesque rate plan with 1500 Anytime minutes and unlimited mobile to mobile only for 49.99. Rollover is not advertised so one would assume existing customers switching to the promotional rate plan would not be able to keep any they already have.

A new 59.99 FamilyTalk rate plan will be available with 550 Rollover minutes, unlimited M2M and unlimited N&W. Like the new existing family talk rate plans the price includes the first two lines. A staggeringly cheaper 49.99 FamilyTalk will be available for existing customers adding a line to their single plan with 450 rollover, unlimited M2M and 5000 N&W.

Cingular will be undercutting Verizon who's lowest Family Talk plan rings out at 69.99 and Sprint/Nextel who gives 150 less minutes for 59.99.

I can't say I frequent the forums at PhoneScoop all that much but I can say that theres a good mix of people who are completely clueless, and like all forums a good amount of people who could spend the better part of their lives arguing over the chicken and egg issue.

The latest argument has been over the name change from SBC to AT&T, and how that will affect Cingular Wireless. An interview of the SBC CEO by USA Today leads some to believe that the Cingular brand is going to be replaced by the defunct AT&T Wireless brand.

I must say it all just seems rather contrived. Yes the AT&T name has better recognition... it should as it is as old as telephone history. But here are my problems with this.

1. If SBC really thought the ATTWS name was the all its cracked up to be, they would have bought it from ATT at the time of the merger. But they didn't.. they leased it for six months.

2. Cingular is in the middle completing the common service experience initiative. Making service and sales equal across both halves of the company, Legacy Blue and Legacy Orange. If Cingular was to rebrand as ATTWS but still be available in some markets as Cingular... how would that provide a common service experience?

3. With around 2000 company owned retail stores, and agents bringing the number up to the tens of thousands..(radioshack alone will add around 5000 more in 06) thats ALOT of rebranding. Most Agent locations shouldnt have a problem, but there are a good number of stores where branding is Cingular inside and out, right down to the shape of the furniture. So this all means alot of money. Unless SBC is going to pay for it, I wouldn't imagine the CWA would be happy with the fact that Cingular just laid off hundreds of employees only to spend millions on rebranding a couple of months later.

4. The name change will have little effect on existing customers. But how will potential customers react to the brand schizophrenia? Cingular is liable to become the Palm of wireless carriers. Frequent name changes give the aura of a lack of credibility. It carries the connotation that the company did something wrong, and is changing their name to make people forget... remember ValuJet -- AirTran? Is that something Cingular can afford? -- Verizon is still posting greater net customer gains since the merger. Brand name stability implies company stability, and Verizon has Cingular beat there.

Just for fun lets track all the name changes shall we?

• 1880 Pacific Bell name adopted for west coast operations
• 1885 American Telephone and Telegraph name adopted by Ma Bell
• 1889 PacBell name droped in favor of Pacific Telephone and Telegraph
• 4/1920 Southwestern Bell name adopted for AT&T Local operations in TX, OK, AK, KA, MS.
• 1983 AT&T along with Ameritech launches the first commerical US cellular system in Chicago.
• 1984 Pacific Telesis brings back Pacific Bell
• 1984 Court order splits AT&T up into seven RBOCs, AT&T forms new company with LD service, manufacturing, and R&D
• 1984 Houston Cellular brand established as a partnership between AT&T and BellSouth
• 1993 Ilinois Bell, Indiana Bell, Michigan Bell, Ohio Bell and Wisconson Bell all owned by Ameritech make it official by going with a single brand name.
• 1993 AT&T Merges with McCraw Cellular largest cell provider at the time, and rebrands as AT&T Wireless
• 1994 American Telephone and Telegraph goes abstract with AT&T Corp.
• 1995 Southwestern Bell Corp abbreviates to SBC Communications
• 9/20/1995 AT&T splits into AT&T, NCR (which has been purchased only four years prior with the same name), and Lucent Technologies (which later splits in to two companies itself)
• 1997 SBC purchases Pacific Bell & Nevada Bell
• 1998 AT&T Merges with TCI cable company
• 1999 SBC Purchases Ameritech
• 2000 AT&T Merges with MediaOne cable company… brands it as AT&T Broadband. AT&T Reorganizes into two separate companies, ATTWS, ATTBB
• 2000 SBC and Bellsouth sign joint-venture 60/40 agreement to form Cingular Wireless merging Pacific Bell Wireless, Nevada Bell Wireless, Southwestern Bell Wireless, SNET Wireless, and Ameritech Cellular and the then Cellular One network. (The Cellular one that exists today is just a service mark of Western Wireless) Houston Cellular assumes the name of Cingular Wireless
• 2001 ATTWS becomes its own company, ATTBB is sold to Comcast
• 9/1/2001 SBC Hopes to transition brand name changes by appending existing regional bell names to the SBC name.
• 12/11/2002 SBC becomes an abstract following in the lines with Verizon and The Artist Formerly known as Prince, to no longer mean Southwestern Bell Corp., and additionally puts Ameritech and PacBell to rest.
• 10/26/2004 Cingular Wireless purchases AT&T Wireless for $41 billion dollars, and is ordered to divest a few markets, selling them off to the highest bidders, including competitors such as Altel
• 11/21/2005 SBC Rebrands as ATT Inc. post-buyout of ATT Corp for 16 billion bringing the death star one step closer to world domination.
• 11/21/2005 Speculation runs rampant on PhoneScoop forums whether or not AT&T will rebrand Cingular services as well -- all based on a jaded writeup of an interview of one CEO by USA Today, without any corroborated reports from other news sources. While readers at PhoneScoop have their heads up their asses a spokesperson from BellSouth counters the rumors by stating that “The Cingular name is not changing, as far as I understand it. They are going to resell their Cingular service under the AT&T name, and I think this will be among their large business customers.”

Sources; Wikipedia (Cingular, AT&T), The Bell System Memorial, The Wayback Machine, The Red Herring, AT&T History

Update 11/21: Official Q&A information directly from Cingular concerning the USA Today article:

"Will Cingular be changing its name to AT&T Wireless?

No. Cingular has been, is, and will remain a national brand.

What has changed for Cingular?

AT&T's plans will not change the way we market or manage Cingular. Even today, when BellSouth and AT&T sell wireless services as part of a bundle of wired and wireless services, the customer receives a bill from BellSouth or AT&T - not from Cingular. Most importantly, if either BellSouth or AT&T purchases wireless services from Cingular and markets them under another name, the results still show up in our balance sheet and are beneficial to Cingular. Gross adds - by any name - show up on Cingular's bottom line."

More to come including a clarification from Stan Sigman.

Although any phone is available for GoPhone service, the Nokia 6010 and the 3220 will be available at discounted prices for GoPhone service. With the Sony Ericssson T290 which was introduced a couple of months ago already in short supply nationwide, the Nokias have been introduced to close the gap for the holiday season.

One more glorified pager to add to the BlackBerry line up. As the love child of the 7100g and 62xx series, the 8700c will feature a new sleek and slim form factor. Replacing the 6290 in Cingular's portfolio, the 8700 features a full qwerty keyboard and improved display. In addition it will be the first BlackBerry to feature EDGE compatibility. Retailing for the price of a real PDA at $449.99, the 8700 will be available at two year contract pricing for $299.99.

The w600i is already being shipped to stores nationwide. With the s710a showing some age, it is likely to replace it in Cingular's line-up. Although Sony's reincarnation of the Walkman follows the same form factor as the s710a it falls short in features with only 256MB of non expandable memory, and a lower resolution 1 megapixel camera. Sony did however manage to cram a FM radio in with EDGE capability, unlike the swap between the S700i and the S710a. The phone features SE's new loop style antenna as seen on the new Z520a, and is reported to recieve better reception than the standard built-in antennas as on the s710, t616 etc. SE lovers might as well trash their accessories as the new w600i like the z520a features a new connection port, requiring new chargers, headsets and data cables, and for all you avid unlockers out there, RSA subsidy locks. For Sony Ericsson, the w600i sets as a mid-range phone, with its older brother the w800i stealing the show with its 2 megapixles and MSDuo slot. It is likely that Cingular passed up the w800i in order to offer a better pricing point with the w600i at $199.99 ($100 MIR, 2YR Contract) than what was possible with the s710a.

The Sierra Wireless AC860 is set to hit stores in the Dallas area as early as next week. The Type II PCMCIA card will be UMTS category 11/12 capable (HSDPA) and will have EDGE and GPRS fallback. The card will average download speeds of 400-700 kbps with a burst maximum of 1.8mbps. Upload speeds will max at 384kbps. Although the card is quad band capable (850,900,1800,1900 MHz) UMTS roaming is only available on the 850 and 1900 MHz bands. The majority of international roaming will be limited to EDGE and standard GPRS as UMTS is fairly standardized on 2100MHz overseas. Users will have to obtain a new 3G compatible sim card from Cingular, and an updated version of the Connection Manager.

Although HSDPA is live in scattered markets across the US, Dallas/Ft.Worth will be the only area to offer it now.