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Joint venture between AT&T Inc (60%) and Bell-South (40%)
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Merger of BellSouth / SBC Wireless Operations 2001
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Atlanta , GA
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Stanley T Sigman - President <br> Ralph De La Vega - COO <br> Thaddeus Arroyo - CIO
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Wireless Services
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''Raising the bar''
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HSDPA , UMTS , W-CDMA , EDGE , GPRS , GSM , TDMA , AMPS , BlackBerries , Wireless Data Services (MEdia Net), Two Way Messaging
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$1944 billion USD
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70,300 ( 2006 )
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Among the services that Cingular aggressively promotes is its "Rollover" service, allowing customers to keep unused minutes from month to month on a twelve-month rolling cycle on its popular "Nation" nationwide plans.
Cingular Wireless was formed in
2001 as a joint venture of (now
AT&T ) and
BellSouth (soon to be purchased by AT&T). The joint venture created the nation's second largest carrier. Cingular grew out of a conglomeration of 11 regional companies. These companies include BellSouth Mobility,
BellSouth Mobility DCS , Cellular One, Houston Cellular, BellSouth Wireless Data, Southwestern Bell Wireless, Pacific Bell Wireless, Nevada Bell Wireless,
Ameritech Cellular , SNET and SBC Wireless.
With the exception of Pacific Bell and BellSouth Mobility DCS, the digital network consisted of TDMA Technology. The Pacific Bell and BellSouth Mobility DCS networks used GSM technology on the PCS frequency (1900 Mhz).
In 2002 Cingular began an initiative called "Project Genesis" that involved a GSM/GPRS overlay of the entire wireless network. Project Genesis was completed by the end of 2004.
After a bidding war with Britain's
Vodafone PLC, Cingular announced in February, 2004 that they would purchase
AT&T Wireless for 41 Billion dollars. The merger was completed on October 16, 2004. The combined company had a customer base of 46 million people which placed Cingular as the largest wireless provider in the United States.
Cingular has launched a high-speed network known as "BroadbandConnect," based on
UMTS and High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (
HSDPA ), to counter
Verizon Wireless and Sprint's
EV-DO networks. UMTS service was launched on December 6, 2005 in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, San Jose, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Austin, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore and Washington D.C. Cingular is expected to launch UMTS in all major metropolitan markets by the end of 2006.
In
California ,
Nevada , northern
New Jersey and
New York City , Cingular and
T-Mobile USA maintained and shared a GSM-1900 network prior to the acquisition of
AT&T Wireless , through a joint venture known as ''GSM Facilities''. The network sharing agreement allowed Cingular to offer local service in northern New Jersey and New York City and T-Mobile to offer service in California and Nevada. On
May 25 ,
2004 , Cingular and
T-Mobile USA announced their intention to dissolve the agreement contingent on Cingular's successful acquisition of
AT&T Wireless .
First announced on
June 23 ,
2005 Cingular Wireless announced the intention to divest its
Caribbean and
Bermuda operations and licenses which it acquired from the acquisition of
AT&T Wireless , to
Irish owned, Bermuda-based
Digcel Group under undisclosed financial terms.
[http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/2005/06/24/denies.shtml ,
[http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/2005/12/21/over.shtml
Cingular outsources some of their
Customer Care to companies in
Canada and overseas.
On August 25, 2005, Cingular was removed from the New York
Better Business Bureau because of a large number of complaints that were not handled in a timely manner. The company is in the process of restructuring its customer care procedures and has appealed the decision.
{Link without Title} It remains a member of the BBB in other states in which it operates.
In 2004, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reported logging more than 14,000 complaints (or 289 per million subscribers) against Cingular Wireless. The most common of which included number portability issues, over billing, poor customer support and network reliability.
In Q1 2006, Cingular Wireless, LLC reported in its first-quarter financial statement that regulatory complaints (complaints to the FCC, Better Business Bureaus and other regulatory or semiregulatory bodies) were reduced over 56% compared to the same quarter one year prior. The first wireless company to announce Q1 results, Cingular reported an extremely strong first quarter, beating analyst expectations with 1.7 million net adds during Q1, drastically reduced customer turnover (or "
Churn ") at 1.9% versus 2.23% one year prior and numerous other improvements. At quarter's end, 89% of Cingular's customers and 97% of its wireless "Anytime" minutes were on its GSM network, a move which the carrier is aggressively promoting. Q4 2005 saw the end of new subscriptions on Cingular's "Blue" (former AT&T Wireless) network, except where corporate contracts mandated they remain available. A down side was a slight overall reduction in Average Revenue per User (ARPU), due to increasing competition between wireless carriers and bargain-basement pricing from resellers. Cingular also during the first quarter began touting independent drivetime testing results showing Cingular as the carrier with the fewest blocked, dropped or poor-quality calls, in a direct attack on Verizon's new "It's the network!" campaign.
Cingular is known for its enterprise services, offered through its , a subsidiary company of the joint venture. It acquired a considerable stable of business clients through the acquisition of AT&T Wireless in 2004, and boasts that it currently serves over 90% of the
Fortune 100 and over 80% of the
Fortune 500 . Cingular is also the largest provider of
BlackBerry service in North America, a service which was threatened by the
NTP lawsuits against
Research In Motion .
On
20 November 2005 , Ed Whitacre, CEO of the newly-merged SBC/AT&T, announced plans to market the service under the AT&T banner.
[http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/business/2005-11-20-cingular-att_x.htm] BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher countered that the terms of the joint venture allow either party to sell the service under another name, and that he believes they will be using the brand to market to business customers. [http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=14568&hed=Cingular+to+Become+AT%26amp%3BT] Cingular president
Stan Sigman concurred with BellSouth's position, indicating that the Cingular brand would continue but be sold under the AT&T brand where offered in packages with other AT&T services, such as data and wireline telephony.
However, AT&T, Inc. announced on 's telephone and wireless operations. A revival of the
AT&T Wireless brand has been confirmed as Bellsouth's 40% ownership of Cingular Wireless will be transferred to AT&T. In 2005, Cingular's revenue was 1/3 of the overall revenue of AT&T and BellSouth. Cingular's name will cease to exist in 2007, as the brand will only be marketed as AT&T Wireless. (http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/02/technology/att_cingular/index.htm)
Recently, Cingular has launched a new ad campaign "Adelante". In Spanish it means literally "forward." It is aimed at the Hispanic and Spanish speaking communities in the U.S. to boost sales and consists of newspaper ads, commercials, and magazine ads. Also, part of "Adelante" is to now start offering bilingual support at its stores for English and Spanish.
During the 1st quarter of 2006, Telephia reported that during an extensive nationwide test of major wireless carriers, Cingular Wireless
Dropped the fewest amount of calls across the country. Cingular in turn began advertising with more aggression the "Allover Network" citing Telephia as "the leading independent research company." This was in stark contrast to the Consumer Unions published "
Consumer Reports " which slammed Cingular for static and dropped calls.
Telephia has refused to provide details on its study, and a spokesman for the company has said, according to the
Boston Globe , that "Cingular shouldn't have even mentioned the company's name to a reporter
1."
- In 2005, Communications Workers Of America , the Union which represents over half of Cingular's employees, specifically recognized Cingular for excellence as a union employer, in direct contrast to competitor Verizon, which CWA singled out as an aggressive union-buster.
- A sales boost is expected following January 2006, when RadioShack (the top wireless retailer in the US) will no longer sell Verizon phones and instead will sell Cingular phones.
- Cingular Wireless is the wireless carrier of the street racers in ''. It is used to receive SMS messages from other racers. This was one of the points of criticism in ''Underground 2'', as the Cingular logo was featured as part of the game's driving interface in Career mode, and was thought to be an dubious method of Product Placement .
- Although Cingular's network standard (GSM) is completely different from Sprint Nextel , Cingular does offer Sprint customers roaming on to their older AMPS network.
