SMT5600 - AT&T vs. Cingular in Palos Verdes, CA

[Guest reubkov]

I just bought a MTS5600 from Amazon. It was $224 with a 2 year AT&T Wireless plan, but with rebates it came to -$25. It's a GREAT deal for a GREAT phone, but the problem is that AT&T Wireless coverage in my area is unbelievably bad. I can't use my cell phone at home, at my office or anywhere in between! I thought about unlocking it and trying T-Mobile, but I can only get the rebates if I stay with AT&T Wireless for 1 or 2 years. However, according to AT&T Wireless/Cingular customer service, I can unlock the phone and migrate to a Cingular plan, without breaking my contract and invalidating the rebates. One bonus is that Cingular offers an unlimited internet plan for $19.99, whereas with AT&T Wireless I only get 8 meg for that price.

My question is this: am I really going to benefit from this change, in terms of improved coverage? Sprint offers the best coverage in my area - Palos Verdes, CA - but the others are less reliable. The only thing I can think of doing is opening up a new Cingular account for a few days and try one of their phones to see if it works in my area, and then, if it does, close that account, unlock my phone and make the switch. Does anyone have any advice? I love the phone, but the poor coverage is driving me crazy!

MUCH thanks,

reubkov

[Guest Socrates]

Hi.

YOu don't have to migrate to Cingular to use the Cingular network.

Just go into settings, Phone, Network, click the menu select shoose network and pick Cingular. You can try out Cingular that way.

Roaming on Cingular is free for ATT. I live in the Valley, and I switched the phone to Cingular since they seem to have more antennas. Plus if ther is absolutely no antenna around for ATT it will switch to Cingular, but this doesn't really help since it won't just pick the "best available" antenna. It will fight to stay on ATT no matter how weak the signal.

Also, AT&T has two kinds of data plans. One is the mMode and one is some generic data plan. The generic one costs like $45 for full data, while the mMode is like $25.

I actually went ahead and paid more for my phone to get it from LETSTALK.com instead of Amazon. The reason I did this is that Amazon was requiring the more expensive data plans and was not offering all the available minutes plans (especially not the specific plan that I needed).