AT&T Bumm Rap?

[mabigwiz]

I have heard many complain about AT&T. Well I just hung up with their customer service on a billing question and they were great! Very polite, complete, was able to answer all my questions.

Coverage has been great in the Chicago area.

I am wondering if AT&T is getting a bad rap or does it vary that much region to region?

 

[Platinum]

Same here, I have had AT&T/Cingular for years and years, never any complaints. Great coverage in SE Florida too.

 

[coop1701]

Same here, I have had AT&T/Cingular for years and years, never any complaints. Great coverage in SE Florida too.

I've had some billing issues over the past few years. But I must admit, I've always had good luck calling them. Never one issue that didn't get a quick resolution.

 

[ColsTiger]

Welcome to EiP!

I've had Cingular/At&t for over five years now and never had a complaint about service or billing. Some people fuss and complain things but it's their own fault for not reading their contracts.

 

[aggieman]

no probs with AT&T here. I was with verizon the past 4 years and Sprint for the last 5 months. I haven't noticed one difference.

 

[cdf619]

I had a good experience yesterday as well. When I bought my iPhone I had been with sprint for about 11 years. before I switched I wanted to try the att network out to see if it would work in my area. Hard to believe but here in Kansas City I am getting better service than I had with my sprint service. Hell sprint headquarters is here. I am a volunteer firefighter and at one of the stations a work at I get no service from sprint but 5 bars from att. Go figure.

Anyways called yesterday to port my number from sprint to my iPhone and the service was prompt and the reps were very easy to work with. Thought it might be a hassle to get everything done since I had already set up a number with att when I signed up for service but process only took about 15 minutes and my iPhone was ready to go.

My past experiences with sprint have not been so nice. I have found that the reps are rude and unwilling to help with issues. Just last week I had an issue with my service and when I called sprint customer service she said she could not help me. I asked her to transfer me to someone who could. She said she did not know and that I should hang up call customer service back and try to get another call center. I then asked her "is it the luck of the draw that I can get someone that could help me with my account," and to my surprise she answered with a yes. At that point I became a little upset in the service and within 30 seconds the rep hung up on me. That seeled the deal and it was time to cancel my contract with sprint.

I shared my experience with a good friend of mine that works for sprint corporate office and he said that is why sprint is the # 3 wireless carrier, poor customer service.

Anyways thanks att for a positive experience so far.

 

[ColsTiger]

I shared my experience with a good friend of mine that works for sprint corporate office and he said that is why sprint is the # 3 wireless carrier, poor customer service.

I would have guessed Sprint a distant fourth behind AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

 

[spacerog]

Part of the bad reputation comes from the OLD AT&T Cellular which no longer exists.

The 'new' AT&T is really just Cingular with the AT&T brand name. Which SBC? acquired when it bought the remnants of the orginal AT&T.

Basically Cingular was formed as a joint venture of SBC and Bell South in '01. Then Cingular bought AT&T Wireless back in '04. Remember those old commercials of the AT&T logo transforming into the Cingular X logo? At some point SBC acquired whatever was left of AT&T and then decided to rebrand Cingular as AT&T wireless, again.

The mergers and acquisitons of various phone companies is a confusing mess. My point is that the AT&T Cellular of yesterday with the horrible reputation and the AT&T of today are two totally separate organizations.

- SR

 

[ColsTiger]

whatever the reason for the bad rap on customer service, it seems that they're trying to improve that image. When I called during my activation of my iPhone, I was treated better than any other time I've ever called Cingular or AT&T.

 

[222psm]

I've had AT&T since it was bellsouth mobility back in 92 never had any problems, very good service and the best coverage in south Louisiana.

 

[ColsTiger]

I've had AT&T since it was bellsouth mobility back in 92 never had any problems, very good service and the best coverage in south Louisiana.

Didn't realize Bellsouth Mobility was in LA. I thought that was just for the Greater Atlanta area. Cool!

 

[aziphone]

I recently heard on a news cast that Sprint wanted customers to leave them as they could not handle the customer service volume they currently had. This made no sense to me. You would think that Sprint would hire the number of people it took to handle their CS volume instead of decreasing their customer base to address this issue. Management never fails to amaze me.

 

[ColsTiger]

I recently heard on a news cast that Sprint wanted customers to leave them as they could not handle the customer service volume they currently had. This made no sense to me. You would think that Sprint would hire the number of people it took to handle their CS volume instead of decreasing their customer base to address this issue. Management never fails to amaze me.

You say you heard this on a newscast? Was it a Sprint PR guy making the announcement or just some journalist making an assumption?

I find it hard to believe too. The "churn" as they call it in the cell phone businesss is the worst thing about their industry.

 

[BanjoBanker]

Me too!

I've had AT&T since it was bellsouth mobility back in 92 never had any problems, very good service and the best coverage in south Louisiana.

I too have been a customer since the BellSouth mobility days, I have always had good coverage here in Alabama as well as the other states I frequent; California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York and Tennessee. So far, no problems. Love my iPhone. The only problem I have had is my BellSouth DSL e-mail account will not let me send mail out from my iPhone! Go figure, it is all the same company and they block my outgoing e-mail. And the customer service for the DSL is not even in the same league as the cellular folks. The AT&T wireless people have been great in trying to help out with my e-mail problem, they are just as frustrated with the DSL folks as I am. My .Mac mail works great, so I am not without e-mail service.

 

[spacerog]

whatever the reason for the bad rap on customer service, it seems that they're trying to improve that image. When I called during my activation of my iPhone, I was treated better than any other time I've ever called Cingular or AT&T.

I agree. I was on hold for like 30 minutes but once I got a real person they were actually pleasent and helpful.

- SR

 

[ColsTiger]

I too have been a customer since the BellSouth mobility days, I have always had good coverage here in Alabama as well as the other states I frequent; California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York and Tennessee. So far, no problems. Love my iPhone. The only problem I have had is my BellSouth DSL e-mail account will not let me send mail out from my iPhone! Go figure, it is all the same company and they block my outgoing e-mail. And the customer service for the DSL is not even in the same league as the cellular folks. The AT&T wireless people have been great in trying to help out with my e-mail problem, they are just as frustrated with the DSL folks as I am. My .Mac mail works great, so I am not without e-mail service.

Try using your entire email address ( username@yourisp.com) in the username section of the outgoing settings. Don't just use the user id. also use your password in the outgoing settings. I did this based on a tip from the board here and now i can send email from anywhere now.

YOu've got three sections to configure:

Host name: your smtp outgoing settings
User name: your FULL email address
Password: your password

This worked for me and I had been trying to configure it for two weeks.

Good luck!

 

[TrippalHealicks]

Didn't realize Bellsouth Mobility was in LA. I thought that was just for the Greater Atlanta area. Cool!

It was just called Bellsouth. And yes, it was here in LA back in the mid-late 90s, i know for a fact. I'm not sure about 92, didn't have a phone at the age of 12. lol
I know it was Bellsouth around 97-98, at least.
Then it was Cingular.
Now it's AT&T.

What's silly is, I actually switched over to what WAS AT&T at the time that it was Cingular, and they were 2 different entities (i assume?).
AT&T had decent service, and the best new phones at the time. Shortly after switching to them, they were consumed(?) by Cingular. Then they switched names to AT&T. lol
I dunno WTF is goin' on with it.

 

[velvetropeparty]

I have been with AT&T since they bought out a smaller provider in Colorado in 1992. I used to travel the US extensively and very rarely had coverage issues. Mostly extreme rural areas. I now live in Atlanta, but came here via Florida. Great coverage again, except extreme rural GA. The ONLY carrier that has coverage there is Verizon. But I prefer GSM, since that is the world standard. I sell bluetooth systems for Mercedes, Jag and BMW and Verizon has always been a pain in the a**. We always have to make exceptions to our systems to make them work with Verizon and Sprint. They do work, but why can't these guys do GSM like the rest of the world?
PLUS Verizon cripples their phones more often than other carriers as far as bluetooth functionality and other items.

 

[jbellanca]

I started with the original AT&T Wireless back about 10 years ago, was moved to Cingular with the prior buy-out a couple years ago, and now am with AT&T after the SBC buy-out. Never had any problems or issues, and I travel every week and find their coverage to be great.

 

[222psm]

I recently heard on a news cast that Sprint wanted customers to leave them as they could not handle the customer service volume they currently had. This made no sense to me. You would think that Sprint would hire the number of people it took to handle their CS volume instead of decreasing their customer base to address this issue. Management never fails to amaze me.

I heard on a news cast that Sprint was getting rid of cutomers that call CS more than 30-40 times per month, the reason Sprint gave was that the callers cloged/took up too much of the CS time. and to find service with other cell phone co.