Lightning Fast from Cingular

"Lightning Fast from Cingular AT&T" -- wish I could say this with pride. I've been a loyal customer of Sprint for a very loooong time. My first phone and provider in US was with Sprint. I liked the phone and the service! Nothing to complain, so I sticked with them. Back then, Verizon was the only real competitor for Sprint and so Sprint was sailing easily. Even when I switched phones and even when I had some wierd/stupid customer service experiences, I retained the service.

AT&T, Cingular (back then it was not acquired by AT&T, later Cingular got AT&T phone service, then AT&T got Cingular back.. some high-tech politics and crap) came into picture and within few years, put a big dent in Sprint and Verizon customer base. That's when the problem started with Sprint. Their customer service and renewal plans became really, I mean really, crappy. I was just waiting for my service period to end.

The day it was over (late this Feb), I promptly switched to Cingular in anticipation of getting the cool "iPhone", as it would work only with Cingular (for now). Got myself a new Motorola Razr v3. Cool and nice piece of hardware. Love it.

Oh.. coming to the "lightning fast" section.. yesterday I called up my friend RM around 8 pm to plan for dinner and left a voicemail. He too has Motorola phone and Cingular service. Since he didn't return my call for a long time, I confronted him (for fun) asking for an explanation. He fired back saying that he didn't get any missed call or voicemail from me. I promised him to show my "dialed calls" list, but forgot and went home.

Today morning, 7:30 am, RM's bedroom, his phone rings, and for a change he wakes up quickly, all pissed off, and he has a voicemail. Alas, it was mine -- the one I sent yesterday. Way to go Cingular, it only took 12 hours for it to reach him.

My another friend SG was joking yesterday at dinner that RM would get my message tomorrow morning. He has seen it happen several times for him.

What kind of network does AT&T and Cingular have? Lesson learned: don't rely on voicemails too much, as you don't know when you are going to get it. :)

I haven't had this problem with voicemails (even once) with Sprint. I enabled bluetooth in my phone recently and that's a whole new story to tell. Above all, I didn't get iPhone yet bcoz it is too damn costly and the wireless network (using EDGE) sucks! Waiting for Service Pack 1. :)

Well, I wonder how the phone services in India are...