AT&T

Full review
I started with ATT and like so many others stuck with Cingular after the takeover. I had absolutely no problems except during the hurricanes (S. FL) when my whole area was without power for 3 weeks. I could drive elsewhere and my phone worked from those areas.

Coverage is fine all over Florida except for a small pocket north of Okeechobee, then it gets spotty but still works. NW GA by the NC border did not work at all. Calls do get dropped (despite what the commercials say), especially on the highways.

My Samsung phone never had an issue (I got a good phone the first time around instead of the el cheapo specials) other than an occassional echo for 3 weeks which has not been a problem for the last year. I've upgraded to the Motorola Razr this week and hope that it serves me as well as my old phone.

I guess all of the negative ratings for customer service are valid, but my experience has almost always been if not pleasant, at least tolerable. No billing issues to date (cross my fingers).

I did speak with a couple of rude, unintelligible, (they spoke English and they had no foreign accent so I figure they're probably undereducated) women about a year ago. But, every guy I've spoken to since has been both clear spoken and well mannered with excellent phone etiquette. They were also very helpful and apologetic if the problem was something that they could not fix over the phone and required a visit to a Cingular store (this only happened once in 2 years of service). But I must mention that the address I was given by the (very polite) Cingular rep on the phone was actually the address to a WalMart and did not take care of the problem. The problem was that Cingualr had sent me a phone with an unregistered sim card and assigned me a number that belonged to someone else.

I finally got to a Cingular store (not a franchise or WalMart which will not help at all) and the guy there was great. I was immediately taken care of and was in and out in less than 10 minutes.

As for the rest, well, I just figure out of every 5 business dealings I have at least 1 will be screwed up due to the incompetence &/or ignorance of the people I'm dealing with. Sad but true.

Caveat emptor.