13 Comments Add your own

• 1. thedetroitchannel  |  January 13th, 2007 at 9:06 am

  anyone who feels “stuck” in a multi-year contract would do well to pay close attention to this deal.

  if they substantially change any provision in your agreement you may have grounds to cancel the remaining part of your contract without penalty (sometimes over $200).

  maybe a simply name change won’t do it, but i did JUST receive a notice that effects my rights calling for binding arbitration to settle all disputes.

  “effecting my rights” can be argued as a substantial change in terms. it might take a little arm twisting but don’t take no for an answer.

  if you feel stuck in your cingular account, this may be your chance, i think.

• 2. Rosenblum  |  January 13th, 2007 at 10:06 am

  If they spent the money on service that they all spend on branding I would not spend half my life going ‘can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?’

• 3. Don  |  January 13th, 2007 at 11:26 am

  In this little part of the world…

  Cellular One
  vv
  AT&T Wireless
  vv
  Cingular
  vv
  AT&T

• 4. thedetroitchannel  |  January 13th, 2007 at 11:56 am

  you remember cellular one?

  they were my original provider. well, not original original because the original was a trunk mounted unit that took up about as much space as a good size piece of luggage which we sampled thru michigan bell telephone co.

  but cellular one was the first one with a “portable” phone. it was more the size of a carry-on bag and plugged into the power outlet in the car. back then we called it a cigarette lighter.

  yikes!

• 5. Steve Safran  |  January 13th, 2007 at 12:26 pm

  Don - good work! We need a family tree that starts with the original pre-1982 AT&T now…

• 6. Don  |  January 13th, 2007 at 12:36 pm

  That family tree is more of a bush…

  I’d post a link to Wikipedia’s chart - but it gets stuck in Cory’s filter. Search Baby Bells on Wiki and look at the chart about halfway down on the right…

• 7. Safran  |  January 13th, 2007 at 12:56 pm

  Don - if you put links in the URL field when entering a comment (Instead of your site’s URL) it will take the link and then you can write here to click on your name.

  And I think they should merge the names to AT&Tingular.

• 8. Charles  |  January 13th, 2007 at 2:57 pm

  Don’t they use Cingular as the sole text message provider for American Idol? They’ll DEFINATELY get people to know about this merger through that show!

  I know this is petty, but… I like the graphics design for Cingular a LOT more than AT&T. AT&T is kind of plain, not fancy, not even simple, just… barely there. Whereas Cingular has life, it has a personality.
  But seeing as I do not own a Cingular phone, it doesn’t ACTUALLY effect me. I’ll just miss those orange stores in the malls!

• 9. Nick Saban  |  January 13th, 2007 at 7:19 pm

  I subscribe to the Sporting News and just received the latest issues. Since I didn’t see the Nick Saban press conference at Alabama ( you know, the football coach who signed a $4 mil a year contract for some 8 years) on any of the cable sports news channels, this was my one and only sighting of him at the podium for his welcome to ‘Bama speech. Guess what? The Alabama banner begind him, like all college or pro sports outfits do these days is have a corporate logo on there. CINGULAR was on there. AT&T blew the ball in free publicity the past week by not showing the AT&T logo at Macworld on stage for the iPhone unveiling and the unveiling of Nick Saban as head coach at ‘Bama, which was big news on ESPN and hundreds of tv sportscasts (and newscasts), thousands of Web sites, and on and on and on.

• 10. Nick Saban  |  January 13th, 2007 at 7:20 pm

  Maybe I didn’t mention it specifically, but the picture in the Sporting News shows Saban at the podium with CINGULAR plastered on that banner with ‘Bama.

• 11. Anony Mouse  |  January 14th, 2007 at 12:31 am

  Now that I know how to avoid the “awaiting moderation” trap (thanks, Safran!), click on my username (Anony Mouse) for an interesting article from Consumerist.com about Detroit’s earlier comments about the new binding arbitration clause from Cingular and how to use it to get out of your contract.

  In my market, AT&T Wireless/Cingular has the worst coverage of all the cell carriers. Hopefully there will be a way to unlock the iPhone and put a new SIM card in it. I know that it took FOREVER to get my Treo 650 unlocked a couple of years ago so I could use it with T-Mobile.

• 12. thedetroitchannel  |  January 14th, 2007 at 8:36 am

  great find, mouse.

  one thing everyone might take away from this article (and a part of all 12 step programs) is to “pratice these prinicpals in all your affairs”.

  don’t think for a minute all those “change in terms” mailings you get from cell providers, cable co’s, credit card issuers, etc. contain much of anything that favors YOU the customer.

  know your rights… and S-T-R-E-T-C-H them to the limits.

  again, great find.

• 13. Chris Weaver  |  January 14th, 2007 at 4:41 pm

  And then there’s the whole NASCAR angle with the Cingular Wireless #31 Car that runs in the NEXTEL Cup Series.

  The Cingular Sponsorship was grandfathered in when NEXTEL took over the series sponsorship from WINSTON but the NEXTEL deal with NASCAR does not allow re-branding like this in order to put it’s competitors at a NASCAR advertising disadvantage.

  It going to be interesting to see how the marketing department handles that element, short of taking back their $20 (or so) million dollars that they spend in the CUP series yearly. But the Cingular contract with the RCR race team is thourgh the end of 07 so AT&T may be out of a bunch of marketing money. HMMM.

  (a more detailed explanation at my blog)

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