Having been a Verizon customer for almost fifteen years now I was accustomed to great connectivity and coverage. My switch to Cingular last month mandated by the Opsware corporate agreement has been a nightmare. I now can count on numerous dead zones on my daily commutes. These ‘dead zones’ were not problem areas in the Verizon network but appear to be consistent and frequent in the Cingular network. These holes in connectvity have often prompted me in my anger to consider alternate taglines that Cingular (if they were honest) would use to describe their service. The one that comes to mind most often is “Are You Still There?” since I find myself saying that to my disconnected phone often since my call was lost and I have been speaking to no-one for an indeterminate period of time.

This morning after my arrival at the office I noticed I had a voice mail message. Upon triggering a call to voice mail the phone beeped in my ear frantically for 15-20 seconds than disconnected. This was repeated at every attempt to connect. I spoke to one of my collegues about it and he indicated that his phone was unable to make or receive calls either. This persisted for over 6 hours before the more typical Cingular lame service was restored.

I called Cingular support and they told me that in the DC area there were 66 cells that had failed and “Technicians were working on it now”. No offer of renumeration or assistance just the info that there is a problem calmly reported as if it happens every day. How helpful.

Are you still there?