Cingular Integration So Slow That Much Of Its Network Is Down

from the whooooops dept

Mon, Dec 20th 2004 11:34pm — Mike Masnick

It's a bit surprising that this hasn't caught the attention of the press yet (other than one small site), but apparently large parts of Cingular's network are down (registration required -- annoyingly BugMeNot resistant). Some online forums have been buzzing about this since soon after it began, but it doesn't look good for Cingular. Of course, this comes out the same day that they explained some of the timelines for integrating AT&T Wireless. It should take about two years, which is what everyone has been saying for a while. Of course, no one really expected that would mean extended periods of time when there was no mobile phone service at all in 13 states.

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Mike, 21 Dec 2004 @ 5:13am

Cingular Integration
This really isn't a surprise. I sell prepaid minutes and Cingular just integrated their systems within the last year. For the better part of 3 years their prepaid platform would not allow their customers to move out of their regional area. If you called the customer service and asked about billing problems they couldn't answer questions about numbers outside of the regional area. I am willing to bet that Cingular does a decent job integrating because they are so used to it.
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Karma whoring for fun and profit, 21 Dec 2004 @ 11:59am

Cell phone outage affects millions
08:52 PM CST on Monday, December 20, 2004
From KHOU 11 News Staff Reports
Millions of cell phone customers in Texas and 12 other states were without cell phone service Monday. The outage involves Cingular Wireless and AT&T.
According to Cingular Wireless, service is out completely in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana.
A company spokesperson said some customers can make calls, but no one can receive them.
It's partially out in Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee.
The outage was caused by damaged servers.
It's not clear when the problem will be repaired.
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