I have been a customer of the system which is now called Cingular for the past 8 years. All during this time, my rural home has had spotty to no service from the Cingular system. Until about 2 years ago when they started building out into the Lehigh Valley region. Then, one day, we literally had great service. Then, a few weeks later, we returned to virtually no service. Since then, no one at Cingular has been able to explain how they managed to provide good service for a while, and then lose it.

When driving on the major (Interstate Class) highways through the area, service is not bad. But once you get off the main routes, even a little, it's a crap-shoot as to whether you can get or hold a tower long enough to finish a short conversation.

A family member staying at a motel in Hershey was unable to complete calls on the system despite being in a major tourist town and right next to the main highway through the region.

It took numerous calls to customer service to even get someone to look into the service problems out here in Berks County. After 3 weeks of looking into it, the best answer customer service could come up with was that our service is marginal because their service is marginal out here. And if we are unhappy about it, perhaps we would like to use a different carrier.

Actually, now that the Immix system is about to turn on in Berks County, I intend to take Cingular up on its offer. It is really a shame that we have two subscribers in our home with Cingular phones, neither of whom can use them from home, or almost anywhere else we go in our daily lives except into Philly and populous suburbs.

I used to like the service, and have stayed with the company through three Corporate owners. They have degraded noticeably over the past two years, and so I shall have to review my options carefully when the new (competitor) system up here comes on line.

Update: Immix is on line in this area and has superior coverage to Cingular. See my update comment attached to this review

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 39.00