I've been soucring Howardsforums.com, probably the best cell phone site on the planet.

With some information I found there, I confirmed that on Monday (11/24) Cingular will allow you to switch to their service and port your phone number via their website. No waiting in lines.

They offer the SE T616, which seems to be a very nice phone these days, has one of the best ratings overall, and seems to work very well with the TLs Handsfree link.

Their GSM network is supposed to be pretty good, and they are expanding it faster than most.

I'll probably make the switch on Monday, and I'll post my results when I'm done.

Ryan

 

Using Cingular S/E 616 right now with TL. Works great!

 

I`ll probably switch to Cingular too, with the T616. Hate to pay the 175.00 penalty to Verizon and also pay 100.00 for the new phone. Besides the rollover minutes which are great, anybody getting a better deal on the T616 with Cingular?

 

I'm not seeing any deals, but I won't be surprised to see a LOT of deals go into effect on Monday when the mad scramble starts. If companeis are going to lose people, they want to gain as many as possible back from other carriers, I'm expecting some price wars.

Ryan

 

Is the penalty to Verison to cancel your contract or the charge they are billing you to allow you to take your number with you?

Number portability will be great but no one has talked about what the wireless companies will be charging to allow it.

 

Verizon charges you a cancellation fee of $175 I think. I'm going to swallow it I think. I don't they can charge you for "removing" a number from their service, only adding one.

Many of the carriers have already been including a small surcharge for the number portability they are being forced to support. Some carrier may charge to port your number to them, but I think it is a maximum of like $35.

Ryan

 

Doesn't the T616 have reported echo problems? Is it still a recommended phone for the 04 TL?

 

616 is fine. I have used it for a month in my TL. Echo complaint only received once from someone calling me.

 

The 175.00 is for the cancelation fee of the contract. No way around that unless I wait till June when its up. Anyway, from what I`ve been hearing, Verizon is definitely going to be the winner after the change. T hey were ranked 1st in J D Powers, and numerous other surveys. Most people will leave their own providers and go there. As for the T616 with echo

 

I`ve seen mixed on here with and without problems. I`f I have any problems with it I`m taking it back

 

Many of the wireless companies have already been charging fees for a few months to cover the cost of the number portability. Remember that this issue has been kicked around for quite some time and when the wireless companies lost their battle to maintain their own numbers, many institued the fees. The 11/24 date is just the start date of when you can take your number with you. Pull out your most recent bill. I'm guessing a lot of folks are going to be surprised to see in on the bill. I'm a Sprint PCS customer for 4+ years noticed a few months ago, the following new line item on my bill:

Federal Wireless Number Pooling and Portability $2.20

I know the fee varies by carrier, but am reasonably sure they are all charging something. So before you start jumping around and think you have a really good deal, you might want to find out what this charge for this is. Then again if it is going to allow you to use the BT in your TL, maybe it doesn't matter.

Rob

 

The portability charge is not on my Verizon bill, which posted last week. Doesn't mean it won't appear soon...

 

Verizon does not charge the fee. They said they wouldnt. They are the only ones that dont oppose the ruling.

 

to my understanding... it is illegal for a carrier to charge individual customers for changing services but keeping same number. It's supposedly, a violation of some kind of federal law. Like NBP04TL4ME already said... they've already charged everybody for this "portiblily" thing (cost for the change of program?). Does that make sense? Basically, they've already "nailed" us for the "inconvience."


I'm going from Sprint PCS to Verizon myself... It's not that I'm unhappy with Sprint, I've been with them for over 5 years, but where I work (and I'm there a lot), it's in some kind of "dead" spot, and nothing comes in clear except for Verizon. I've been waiting for this day ever since I relocated there 4 years ago.

I know Sprint's a little desparate, cause I got a letter saying that if I stay with them, I'll get a 5% discount.

 

does the SE610 do any better/different than the 616 ?? I have Cingular too , and I qualify for an "upgrade" in january, where my 2 years has passed and I can save $100 to change phones. That is worth 2 months to live w/o blue tooth to upgrade phones.

If they don't offer much, who's next for quality in Atlanta ?? sounds like a lot of people like Verizon these days, any other Atlanters with Verizon ??

 

SE T610 and T616 are the asme phone, except 2 of the frequencies of the 3 bands they support are a little different. T610 is more compatible outside the US because it shares more frequencies commonly found there. No other difference.

Ryan