Cingular Wireless: A Reasonable Choice
Written: Jan 20 '07
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Local Coverage: |
 |
|
| Plan Flexibility: |
 |
|
| Customer Service: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Very helpful customer service representatives; reasonably good cellular service.
Cons: Text messages are not included in the plan.
The Bottom Line: Cingular provides reasonably good service in our area and the customer service is excellent.
|
|
|
| beckish's Full Review: General Reviews of Cingular Wireless Customer Serv... |
I switched to Cingular over two years ago after having a horrible experience with Verizon and bills totaling in the hundreds of dollars for calls that we never received or made. The reason for choosing Cingular was quite simply because it was the only network semi-reliable in our new home area.
Setting Up Service
I went to the Cingular web site, chose a plan, and selected phones. This was a very easy process that was completed with no hassles or complications.
Within a few days the new phones were delivered to our home. After unpacking the boxes and reading the enclosed paperwork I noticed a glitch; they had issued us Seattle numbers. We live in Davenport, which is about 45 miles outside of Spokane. It is already long distance from our home to Spokane; the last thing I wanted was for our cell phones to be long distance both from Spokane (where we work) and from home! I immediately called the customer service number provided on the paperwork.
I hate calling any company's customer service. This was a typical call; I was on "ignore" for about twenty minutes (our favorite term for "hold") and then a customer service representative came on the line. To my delight and surprise, changing the numbers was not a big problem. Within a few minutes she had assigned us Spokane numbers and I was off the phone. Another point of interest; I was impressed that I didn't have to be re-routed through China before getting an English speaking person who could help me.
Our Plan
We are on a "family plan" that includes 850 "anytime" minutes, unlimited free mobile-to-mobile minutes, unlimited night and weekend minutes, and "rollover" minutes.
For the most part, this plan has worked exceptionally well for our family with a couple of bumps in the road over kids and text messaging. Texting is not automatically included in the plan; it has to be added as a special feature. I added it to one of my daughters phone for around $10 a month for 1000 text messages (this includes incoming and outgoing)after my bill jumped to over $200 because of texting. (Unless you add it, each text message - incoming and outgoing - cost about $.05 a piece. This adds up if the kid is texting a lot!)
My daughter was also downloading "ring tones" without my permission, another jump in the bill. I contacted Cingular customer service and asked them to block this type of download from my daughter's phone line and they did so immediately with no hassle. Unfortunately they said they couldn't block overage on text messages but I was still pleased with their service.
Positives
- Reliable cellular service in most of our normal calling area. Unfortunately this area does not include our house, where we can receive only occasional calls and have no service for outgoing calls.)
- Family plan features are pretty good. In the over two years we have had Cingular we have never gone over our minutes and the rollover minutes keep building up. If unlimited texting was included this would be the perfect plan.
- Price is reasonable; about $100 a month for three phones.
- Phones provided by Cingular have proven to be high quality.
- Customer service can't be faulted. Every time I have contacted them they have gone out of their way to make me happy.
Negatives
- Text messaging is very expensive if you don't purchase the add-on service.
Final Thoughts
I recently upgraded two of the three phones we have and committed to a new two-year contract. If I was not completely happy with this company, the service they provide, and their customer service I would never have considered doing so.
I pay my Cingular bill online, which is a great convenience to me. As a side note, the paper bill arrives generally AFTER the due date, which is not helpful in maintaining a good credit rating! The web site is initially slow; it takes a long time for it to validate my account. Once I have gotten past that hurdle, though, I can't fault the web site processes.
I highly recommend Cingular. Unless some new company with majorly improved access to my home comes into service, I envision that we will be Cingular customers for a long, long time.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 100
|
|
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.