After searching far and wide for a second cellular phone for my business, I came across Cingular's service. At first it seemed unbelieveable. UNLIMITED NIGHTS/WEEKENDS, 300 anytime minutes and FREE LONG DISTANCE!! That means that if I called long distance at night time, I would be talking for free! Well, the keyword here is "talking". With Cingular, that is just not possible. Let me explain:

During the past five years, Cingular Wireless (formerly known as Pac Bell Wireless in CA/NV) spent lots of $$ building up their network in order to compete with the two incumbents Verizon Wireless and ATT Wireless. After an initial hefty spending budget, they pretty much had LA covered. Their service was excellent due to the fact that they had a relatively small number of users, plenty of cell sites and a good reputation. Then the geniuses at marketing decided that Unlimited mobile/mobile combined would be a nice feature. True, it was very nice and it fit well with Cingular's customers (primarily consumers). As of December of 2000, however, Cingular went all out and offered the Unlimited Nights/weekends and free long distance offer. This took the cake for most people. The offer couldn't be beat! Unfortunately, their networks weren't up to snuff. Almost instantaneously their networks were clogged with users after 8. I didn't realize this when I signed up for the phone. Then it happend:

SYSTEM BUSY. This notice comes on when Cingular's system is overloaded (too many users at one time) and your call simply does not go through. This is REGARDLESS of how many bars you see. Even if you have four bars, you can get a "System Busy" signal. Just press redial, right? WRONG. I pressed redial a total of 46 TIMES!! And I still didn't get my call through. And what about recieving calls? Straight to voicemail! And worse yet, you can't check your voicemail on a landline phone, so until the system clears up, you are out of voicemail access!!!!

After trying my phone for several weeks during the OFF PEAK period, I can conclusively say that Cingular's service is not up to snuff. Their plans are great, but their network can't handle the load in new users. And considering that it takes over a year to put in a new cell site, and that you can't space cell sites too close together, I doubt the problem will be alleviated anytime soon.

I have to say, however, that the System Busy problem really depends on your proximity to a congested site. I am close to a University, and everybody there is on Cingular, so the system is clogged up pretty much all the time. Other areas, however, may be less congested. If you are next to a mall, dense residential, or college campus area, you might want to avoid Cingular.

So... what are the pros and cons?

Pros:
Great Plans!
Great Phones
Great features

Cons:
Bad Connections
Poor reception

Verdict? If you are a consumer and don't mind continuously pressing the redial button (for over an hour, perhaps), don't mind missing calls when you have four bars and full reception, don't mind only being able to check your VM using your cell phone (and hence waiting for your call to go through) and use long distance at night EXTENSIVELY, then this might be the phone for you. Otherwise, I would try Verizon. I also have a Verizon phone and their service is Superb. They don't offer as great of plans, but then again, I get my calls ALL the time, they have EXCELLENT customer service, and is geared towards more of the business users (better overall call quality).

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 39.95