AT&T Mobile Phone Service in San Francisco/San Jose/Oakland

Pros: Great Local Service
Cons: Expensive Roaming Service

Cellular One is expensive if you travel in the U.S.
I must agree that their service quality is excellent, but they have no nation wide plan. So if you travel a lot, your bill can easily be $200-$400 per month.
I have the 1000 minute plan, and...

Pros: great service
Cons: really haven't found any yet

I have had Cellular One service for a while now and have been really happy with it. I originally bought my cell phone because I drive home from work late at night and I wanted the peace of mind of having it if I broke down. I have never had dropped...

Pros: Lots of minutes, affordable price
Cons: Hidden costs, customer service OK

I've owned a cell phone for over 3 years now and I've had several different plans, but I've found this one to be the best that Cell One has to offer. But is that saying much? It depends on how much you use your phone...

The nice thing about...

Pros: Great coverage, decent sound, reasonable price for the 300
Cons: 600 a tad expensive, roaming if you call FROM outside of California to anywhere else

Face it - cell phones have become ubiquitous. They aren't a symbol of yuppiness anymore so much as they are a measure of convenience. What people without cell phones may not realize is that it is the cell phone service plan that makes all the...

Pros: Great coverage (HWY 101, Silicon Valley, SF city & suburbs); no long distance fees.
Cons: HWY 280 Spotty Coverage

Like many newcomers to San Francisco, I was shocked and horrified to find that AT&T does not provide service in the Bay Area -- after a year of good experience with the AT&T Digital One Rate, my main goal was to find a plan that replicated the...

Pros: good tdma reception, not too many blind spots
Cons: lousy customer service erroneous charges long hold/wait reps don't document calls rated worst

I've had an AT&T phone for about six months. It's the basic GSM Motorola phone. I have had nothing but problems with AT&T for the past six months.
Customer service is non-existent. Hold times are very long and there is no continuity from customer service to techincal support to sales. You have to tell them the whole story from the beginning every time you call.
Most of the time they do not document your calls and you have to write letters (which don't get answered anyway).

Once they were supposed to credit my account for renewing with them for another year. They didn't. I had to call three times to get them to realize their error. And of course, they think you're wrong and they're right every time.

AT&T is OK as long as you don't have any problems. But beware as soon as you have a tiny little problem with them, good luck! Forget it! That's why they're rated the worst time and again for customer service.

Pros: The phone is a pretty color.
Cons: Customer Service Nightmare.

I am leaving AT&T wireless. I am paying the $150 cancellation fee. In the long run it will be cheaper, because they have overcharged me so many times.
After wading through their maze like phone system, I finally got through to customer disservice, which told me I was in the wrong department, told me to call a different number (which was the exact number I had called), said they would transfer me, then disconnected me.
When I calmed down enough to call again, and once I finally got through, their "customer care representatives" gave me the wrong information (lied to me) several times, which cost me even more money. Three representatives, supervisors and supervisors of supervisors, have told me they would call me back "within the hour, or by tomorrow at the latest." I have not received one call in five months. Each time I call in, their magical computer system has no record of my repeated requests.

Pros: still thinking .... the phone does work, if there is signal.
Cons: drop calls often, won't unlock phone,

Even though roaming on other networks (Cingular and T-Mobile) for GSM phones are now "free", you will be charged using "anytime" minutes even if you are calling other AT&T mobile callers. I purposely signed a 2-year contract to get unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes, but I was charged "anytime" minutes while the phone automatically roamed to the Cingular network. To get around the problem would be to set the phone to "manual searching"; but the AT&T network for the GSM phones are rather spotty, so there are lots of dropped calls.

Another problem with AT&T is that they refuse to unlock the phone, meaning if I go to another country, I cannot purchase a local sim card to use the local system. Rather, I have to roam using AT&T's high rates. AT&T claims that they subsidize the phone, so they can put a lock onto to phone. But I believe the phone is my property because I signed a two-year contract, binding me to use their service. Why can't I unlock my own phone? Also, how come if the phone is broken, I have to pay to get it fixed?

Pros: Decent reception and friendly customer service.
Cons: Price eventually was beat by another provider.

I really can not complain too much about this service, but it was time to move on. I received good reception, in most areas except for one spot near 101 South, near De La Cruz. (I really don't have gripes about basement garages because loss of signal is understandable.)

My one and only complaint, is the ease of knowing how many minutes you have left. I must give props to ATT for adding this option to the on-line features of it's service. Maybe I was just spoiled by a "previous provider," that provided this information as a voice-mail option.

Pros: Great phones, excellent international coverage and options
Cons: Poor coverage. They employ robots in their customer service dept.

I switched to AT&T Wireless after poor service from Sprint. Almost as soon as I did, I regretted it. I live in Walnut Creek (near the Northgate area) and the amount of dropped calls was simply amazing.

AT&T said it was my phone and that I was to switch to their new GSM service my troubles would be over AND I'd get the way cool T68i phone for free! In fact, the service was worse

After another year of complaining about dropped calls (I received $216 worth of dropped call credits in 12 months and was told I would no longer receive them) I switched to Cingular.

Now I can make calls from home AND it's $20 a month cheaper.
Well worth the $175 fee to drop their service and switch my number over.

(BTW, if you ever need to switch your number from AT&T to another cellular service, get ready for some serious frustration.)

Pros: March 1st AT&T working on network. Will get better service eventually.
Cons: Months a way for better service.

I hate the reception I get with AT&T. I never have more than 1 bar. I went to the store to complain and apparently they are working on the problem. They told me that by March 1st of 2004 they will be switching to 800mhz which will be better. They said don't expect boom March 1st and it's up and going they will be working on sections at a time. So AT&T customers lets pray they get their crap together, if not I'm going to cingular. My parent's have it and they always have full reception!

Pros: their TDMA coverage is better than others, free phones and accssories
Cons: GSM coverage is a joke. website is slow. customer service reps are MEAN...

the GSM service is REALLY BAD.
Customer Service Reps are REALLY MEAN.
pricy calling plans.
TDMA is okay, not great, but okay.

Pros: Good Reception
Cons: Roaming is deceptive, but argue!

Don't get me wrong, coverage around the Bay is pretty good--generally 3 or 4 bars out of 4. However, watch for the roaming charges even though "AT&T" may be clearly displayed on the phone. Santa Cruz is the one place that particularly has this problem. The first time I was charged, I called 611 and they removed 20 bucks of roaming charges. The second time, when I was convinced I hadn't look closely enough at the phone before, I incurred more charges and was only able to talk my way out of half the charges.

I pay $35/month for 500 anytime, 250 mobile to mobile, and unlimited nights/weekends, National Network plan. My deal's pretty good because they offer student discounts around Stanford.