Cell phones forum: Verizon v. Cingular

It is Verizon that is limiting the features of the phones that they sell. Verizon's GET IT NOW is a scam to funnel verizon customers to spend more money by utilizing verizon to manipulate data, ringtones, and images on phones. Verizon actually locks out many capabilities of the phones they sell so that their customers have to rely on and pay verizon to do these things for them. Look into it. It's amazingly irritating. Verizon is a good company who finds it necessary to black male their customers.

The customer service at Cingular has been horrible, I have spent over 4 hours and 6 weeks trying to get my phone upgrade delivered. It has been 6 weeks and the phone has not arrived yet.

I have beenwith Cingular since September 1994 and my with has been with them since October 1998. My wife contract is up 01/06 and my contract is up in 06/06. If you feel that Verizon customer service is bad I am here to say that since the merger with AT&T Cingular is a hell of lot worse. given the choice between verizon and cingular stay with verizon. We are going to Verizon. STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM CINGULAR. Even if you have to use a tin can and string. GO TO ANY ONE BUT CINGULAR.----------------CINGULAR CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW.

My current contract was initiated almost 2 years ago, well before this Feb 21, 2005 date, which I gather is a date that began a broader Verizon coverage area, which apparently only applies to accounts created from that date forward, leaving me out unless I renew. I have completed my original 12 month contract.

I live in an area that is weak on Verizon towers, my signal gets dropped a lot, and often I cannot pick up a signal at all from my house. I get the message ''Service Required'' on my display often if I try to pick up a signal from my home.

Kyocera 2325 is the phone I use. Verizon retail centers refuse to perform any service on it at all. I am told it is an obsolete model and I need to upgrade. They require a 2 year contract renewal with a new phone.

I do not like contracting for 2 years with any plan. That is a long time, new phones coming out, better technologies. But if I do renew now, I am stuck with the phone I get for 2 years, locked into a contract.

I am seriously looking into switching to Cingular, mostly because I've heard Cingular has better phones for less upfront money. But I have read some very bad reviews on Cingular's customer service. Verizon's customer service has consistently been good. Some phone reps are more ''by the book'' than others, and I prefer a phone rep who expresses empathy & sounds down-to-earth. Most of Verizon reps have been nicely empathetic and down-to-earth. They all though have given out good information. Verizon retail store reps are confusing, contradictory, and often too arrogant for me.

Before I commit to a 2 year renewal contract, I want to be sure this new ''coverage area as of Feb 21, 2005'' Verizon advertises on its website will include the area I'm in.

So this is not really a question, more like a venting of frustration that my Kyocera 2325 is almost completely dead now & I have to commit to 2 years to get a working phone going again.

I've been told Congress may intervene with regulations preventing this 2 year contract obligation but it hasn't happened yet & is apparently industry wide with all cell phone plan companies.

Verizon Wireless doesn't mandate anyone to sign 2 year contracts. You can upgrade every year, though you don't get the new every 2 offer of up to $100 instant credit. Also the proce you see in bold print is for 2 year contracts, and in little print, it lists the price of the phone for 1 year contracts. Some Verizon Wireless corporate stores also list the price with no contract. You have to make it clear to them you want the 1 year contract and not the 2 year contract. I hope you're not going to an authorized agent. They'll say anything to get you to sign a contract that they might mess up on, and may later try to sell you a phone at a price other than listed price. I went to an authorized agent in Schererville Indiana that didn't list the price(s) by their phones, most models sold were discontinued a year or more, and the accessories look like dollar store quality. As for the Kyocera 2325 phone being obsolete; it is in the eyes of Verizon Wireless because they're required to have E911 compliant phones, and that model isn't E911 compliant. I knew someone who had a Motorola Startac that had to get a new phone, because his phone wasn't E911 compliant, plus the phone was too old to transfer the phonebook over to the new phone. I happen to be on the old Americas Choice plan, which I get to upgrade on July 1 of next year. I'm keeping my eyes out on the newest phones during that time. I have yet to decide what phone I want, but so far I have my eyes on the Samsung a950 & the Nokia 6256i, leaning more on the Nokia phone, because it has the external antenna, which I prefer, plus it's tri-mode, vs. all-digital on the Samsung.

cingular offers true nationwide plans which means if you have service there are no worries and we also have the largest network of all the carriers which is why verizon now says most reliable and not the largest network. i am a store manager for a company owned cingular store

How often do you really need to call customer service? If you rate customer service over the quality of your phone calls (connection, static, dropped calls, etc), then switch. You'll be calling customer service often.

I've been with Verizon for nearly 5 years and have only called in order to renew my contract. No issues there. If you have billing questions, you can normally figure things out using their website. That's what I do.

Consumer Reports just rated all US carriers. Verizon came out on top in every major city except 1. They also stated that customer service was a general complaint amongst ALL carriers.

-Phil

Yes, you are allowed to change your plan at anytime, but how convenient for you to forget to mention that if you do you are only allowed to keep rollover minutes that match the anytime minutes on your new plan. This does not work well for people with 7000 rollover mins that want to go down to a 700min plan for $69.99, because they will only end up with 700 mins rolled over. But that's Cingular for ya. Glad I left the company.

its not really up to us to dictate what carrier you should get..youre a person with a brain (hopefully) that can make decisions. half of these people on here dont know the motorola razr from the razor they use to shave ... im not going to tell you what carrier to get, you SHOULD be able to make that decision on your own . go to cingular and t-mobile and ask about the features. find out what fits you best

That is hillarious. GSM is the global standard. Verizon may have launched ev-do first but once umts launches nationwide with edge fall back verizon will be the outdated technology. look how far Cingulars network has come since the merger and it is only getting stronger. (Fewest dropped calls and more towers and more money invested in our network than any other carrier) Even if we rebrand back too at&t (which is only a rebrand unlike the previous merger) we are the larges telecommunications company in the world and are outclassed by no one

Before you make such statements, educate yourself by reading here and here

Here are some excerpts:
In the beginning, GSM was in fact superior. It had more services and allowed more data transfer. But CDMA, facing the advantages of the competitor standard, soon delivered the same features found on GSM. Nowadays, it is not possible to say that GSM services are better than CDMA.......So, nowadays both technologies are equiparated in technology, but this picture won't be like that in the future. Afterall, CDMA evolution ground is wider and in a few years it will be superior than GSM. This means that GSM operators will disapear? Not at all. They will migrate over CDMA and the war will continue, because the existing CDMA operators chose to use 1xEV-DO and1XEV-DV technologies for their 3G network and the existing GSM operators have opted for a different technology, called WCDMA.

Please do yourself and others a favor by reading first before you make uninformed statements.

The statement that you attribute to me was made by experts. So, go ahead and tell them they have no idea what they are talking about.
I guess you being able to do three things at once makes you an expert huh?
Grow up people.

also, we should consider what's the basis were arguing for. For me, GSM is more flexible and you can just swap sim cards in different countries, that's the basis of my argument. I think that neocon's argument is based on call quality, which is true in CDMA. The thing is I dont want our phones to be locked to my carrier. I have an unlocked GSM phone, so i can just jump to another GSM carrier if i want to. I want flexibility and freedom with my phone. The carrier is not gonna control my cellphone habits. Sorry Neocon, please disregard my previous post, it was unprofessional of me.

I dont know if the world is going to embrace CDMA on a worldwide scale, but so far, a lot of countries are riding on GSM. If youre a traveler, which i do, GSM is good. I assume that neocon lives only a particular area, then CDMA is the way for you

GSM and CDMA have their both advantages and disadvantages, its just about which advantages would benefit the individual the most

Cingular's policy as of recent is you are eligible for upgrade (2 year pricing on new equipment with new 2 year contract) after 18 months. So you can upgrade keeping the same plan (whether they still offer or not) at any point in the final 6 months of your 2 year contract. Old plans will just grandfather in.

Just incase you are wondering how i know this i am a store manager for Cingular in the NYC market.

We are also the only company that will let you upgrade or down grade your plan (increase or decrease minutes) at any point of your contract without affecting the overall length of your agreement unlike verizon and sprin-nextelcwho will force you to extend your contract to decrease you minute plan.