Audiovox 5600 no more?!?

[Guest gsr264]

I spoke to a Cingular customer service manager last night from their national call center in texas. He indicated to me that as of the end of the month, At&t will stop selling ALL their phones. I brought up the 5600 specifically, to which he replied "no more". The gentleman said that at the end of the month they are "flipping the switch", changing all the At&t servers to Cingular and as a result of At&t phones being locked, they will stop selling them. I was told anyone that already owns the unit will have to have it unlocked in order to continue to use it.

I realize that often these guys are misinformed, however this gives some motivation to those hedging on picking up a 5600.

[Guest peterweg]

Earlier this evening I stopped by the local AT&T Company Store in the mall while waiting for a movie. Much to my wife's dismay I proceeded to go in to play with the SMT5600 that I have been hearing so much about. Since I have never actually had hands on it, I decided it was about time to. That is about the time that the store Manager approached me to "assist" me with anything I needed. At first I said no thanks I am just looking, and then a light bulb went off in my head. I turned and said, “Actually I do have a few questions about this new Smartphone”. I asked what the future held for the phone once AT&T was completely absorbed by Cingular, he seemed surprised by my question, but I found myself more surprised by his answer.

He told me that AT&T was going to stop selling the phone on the 14th of November, yes this Sunday!, and he then proceeded to tell me that AT&T will be NO MORE on the 15th (Monday). I even noticed that the phones in the store said AT&T/Cingular as the provider. He also informed me that none of the phones that were currently in the store would be carried unless Cingular is already providing that model. I then asked about unlocking the phones for use on the Cingular network and got a swift, sharp NO! Customers will be required to purchase a NEW phone if they change fully to a Cingular plan. However that doesn’t mean that you will be left out in the wind, those who have AT&T will be rolled into Cingular service, but keeping their current plans they have with AT&T. He “believes” that these plans will eventually be phased out entirely to cut down to one data service and what not, but he “suspected” that it would take quiet some time. The only reason that I thought this is worthy of mention about the SMT 5600 is because he pulled out a list of phones that Cingular will be carrying after the merger and the Audiovox SMT 5600 was in fact not on that list. I tried everything I could to get a copy of that list, but he wouldn’t budge on it, he said it was propitiatory information that he could loose his job over. Well here’s to AT&T on their last weekend around…

http://www.mobilegadgetnews.com/modules.ph...order=0&thold=0

Seems to be true

[Guest gsr264]

The manger I talked to confirmed that The 5600 will most definitly NOT be offered by Cingular and there are no indications it will be. He also confirmed the change of signage next week.

The thing that interests me is that there have been reports that mpx220 info and faqs has been showing up on the At&t site. Why start bringing that into the At&t system if they are not going to be offering that phone or any other?

Here is a link to one of the mentioned articles on the AT&T wireless site

At&t Mpx220 help

[Guest McHale]

I am just guessing here, but I think that AT&T was slated to release the MPx220 first because of Cingular's internal testing and those pages were set up way back when. When I got my email from Motorola telling me where I would be able to pick up the MPx220 first, it was from AT&T.

I'm betting AT&T decided when this whole merger talk started to go about business as usual and worry about the conversion to Cingular only when it was time. Well, the "it's time" happened right about when they were supposed to launch it and that's when they bailed. The websites were already up.

Think of it this way. Remember when the NY Times or TIME or whoever it was had obituaries online for people who weren't dead yet (Dick Cheney comes to mind)? Well it was premature (and maybe wishful thinking). They wanted to be ready for when the time came.

Same thing.

-Mc

p.s. I didn't bring up Cheney's name to spur some political debate so *PLEASE* no politics. I'm already on "last warning" on a couple other forums since the 2004 election. :oops:

[Guest gsr264]

Just a side note-

Ok so we have the 5600 getting pulled as of monday, and the mpx220 already pulled from Best Buy. If Cingular itself doesn't internally release the 220 on Monday, America will be without a Windows Smartphone!!!!

(no I'm not counting the samsung i600) :shock:

[Guest squall]

1 step forward 2 backward....

Im not convinced about the 5600 being pulled, if it is true i think you will see it launched again after a short period

[Guest fatalnoise]

I doubt it will be gone for long. From what I've read internally, it make take a little while, but it will likely come back... I'll post anything info when I get it, but for now that's all I have...

1 step forward 2 backward....

Im not convinced about the 5600 being pulled, if it is true i think you will see it launched again after a short period

[Guest gsr264]

I agree. Think about what a push Napster and Microsoft are giving this phone with all the WMP10 buzz. There is too much going for it to just yank it entirely. I expect to see it back with cingular or with T-mobile within 2 months.

[Guest gsr264]

This has just been confirmed... check the att wireless site, its NOT THERE!

They are also reporting on this over at MPX200.org...

"It seems to be official, the AT&T stores are no longer caring the SMT5600 and http://www.attws.com bumps me to the Cingular store every time I try to do anything on the site. It looks like this great little phone had a good run but a short one.

Amazon is still selling the phone at this point so if you want one of these phone, you had better act quickly and buy one from Amazon before they too lock the remaining units in a closet too."

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

It's still listed HERE

I cannot check to signup etc as I need a ZIP code

[Guest gsr264]

Just found this...

LINK

Seems to indicate that Att phones will be available for the next six months yet...

Will let you know if anything else develops

[Guest gsr264]

Just found this...

LINK

Seems to indicate that Att phones will be available for the next six months yet...

Will let you know if anything else develops

[Guest chance]

Just bought the 5600 last night (11-18), asked the rep if there were going to be any problems with it since Cingular doesn't carry it and the merger and everything. He told me there would be no problems at all. I asked why Cingular doesn't carry it and he rattled something off about the SIM card not being compatible/fitting... but he was vague by saying Cingular will eventually carry it. As far as ATT plans, he told me they were going to be honored by Cingular. If there was a phone you liked and it was only carried by Cingular (if you were to walk into the store today), such as the Motorola Razr, then you would have to change to a Cingular plan.

Take this with a grain of salt as it seems if you ask two different reps the same question, you will get two answers that are opposite of one another. I upgraded from the MPX200, the thing kept shutting off on me during calls and sometimes would not start back up. So far, I really like the phone. The OS being 2003 is really nice because you already have contact pictures, file manager, and other programs already loaded on the phone. They use all the same cables as well, so now I have a set at home and a set at work. I just hope I won't get burned with this phone once everything is switched over!