Cingular Wireless Completes Georgia Network Integration

Wireless Coverage Improved Across the State

ATLANTA, Jan. 9 /PRNewswire/ --
Cingular Wireless customers in Georgia now have more coverage in more places thanks to the completed integration of the AT&T Wireless and Cingular Wireless networks and addition of new cell sites. The more than 475 newly integrated cell sites were kept from the AT&T Wireless network.
Coupled with the 130 brand new cell sites built in 2005, Cingular Wireless now has more GSM cell sites serving more Georgian's. These enhancements were part of the company's 2005, $360 million network investment campaign. Customers should experience improvements in overall call quality, in-building, in-car and street level coverage.

"Providing the most advanced wireless services in the industry isn't going to matter to customers if a voice call doesn't go through and stay connected. Our network integration and expansion means that customers should now receive better overall coverage, improved call quality, and ability to make calls in more places," said Cliff Minor, vice president and general manager for Cingular's Georgia Operations. "We've made a large investment in network enhancements in 2005 and will continue to do so in 2006."


Since its merger with AT&T Wireless last year, Cingular engineers have been working to integrate the two companies' national networks by choosing the best cell site locations from both, eliminating duplicate equipment, and then combining everything on a common network platform. Engineers will continue to optimize the network in the coming weeks following the completion of the integration efforts and preparing for its 2006 expansion campaign.


Now, with the completion of the network integration in Georgia, the two networks can "talk" to each other, establishing the call through the closest site and passing the call seamlessly from site to site. All Cingular customers not only have access to more cell sites, but have all the cell sites in Georgia working together for them.


The company integrated approximately 475 cell sites into its existing network across 108 counties in the state. Fourteen of the 108 counties, now have brand new wireless coverage; 10 counties have 100% or more cell site count improvement; and 13 counties have 50% to 100% cell count improvement. By the end of 2006 when the networks have been integrated nationwide, Cingular customers will have access to some 45,000 cell sites.


Source : http://att.centralcast.net
Areas most significantly impacted by the 2005 expansion initiative include:
Fayette County (Increased number of cell sites serving the county by 238%):
- Increased in-building coverage along Joel Cowan Pkwy SR 74 from Starrs


Mill, Peachtree City and continuing north of Tyrone, GA.
- New coverage for the Graves Lake Dam area just south of Brooks, GA.
- Increased coverage for the city of Fayetteville and the surrounding area.
- Additional coverage extends north and south along SR 85 and the Hwy 92 corridors and west along Highway 54 and the surrounding area.
- New coverage just south of the Willow Pond area SW of Fayetteville and the Mills Dam area NE of Inman, GA.


Paulding County (Increased number of cell sites serving the county by 156%):
- New coverage in and around Dallas, GA.
- Expanded coverage east of SR 61 and north along SR 381 to the Paulding/Cobb County line.
- Increased coverage along US 278.
- Increased coverage east of Paulding/Polk County line, along US 278 to


Dallas, GA; between SR61 and Highway 92; and between the cities of Dallas and Hiram.
- Expanded coverage north of Paulding/Carroll/Douglas County lines; east of SR101; and north along SR 61 to Dallas, GA.
- Increased coverage along SR 120 from Union east to Dallas and Hiram.
- Increased in coverage from Union to New Georgia along Mulberry Rock Road; areas from New Georgia to Highway 92 along Ridge Road near Hiram.


Forsyth County (Increased number of cell sites serving the county by 158%):
- Added coverage along SR 9 and SR 371.
- New coverage just South of Heardville GA and fill-in coverage along SR 369 just east of Hightower.
- New coverage for Big Creek and the surrounding area.
- Added coverage along SR 20 just SE of Cumming.
- Brand new coverage along SR 369 east of 400 and the Coal Mountain area.
- Added coverage along SR 400 north of Cumming.


Sumter County (Brand new coverage - 8 cell sites along the GA/FLA Parkway) and Ware County (700 % increase in coverage for GSM service)
- New coverage in cities of Americus, Pearson, Douglas, Waycross and Valdosta
- Added coverage along Highway 49 connecting Americus to Andersonville;


Andersonville to Oglethorpe; and from Oglethorpe/Montezuma to Marshallville
- Added coverage along Highway 82 Northwest of Albany, connecting Sasser to Dawson; west on Highway 82 to Tifton and north to Jessup
- Added coverage along Highway 257 Northeast of Albany; Along Highways 27 and 195 East of Americus to Flintside, GA.
- Added coverage along Highway 84 to Brunswick and connecting Waycross to Valdosta; and south to Homerville, Valdosta and Quitman
- Added coverage along Highway 23 from Waycross southeast to Folkston
- Added coverage along the Valdosta corridor in and around Nashville, Lake City and the Moody Air Force Base
- Added coverage North along I-75 connecting to Tifton and Albany

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Former Cingular Wireless Customers

­A US court has ruled that some 7,000 Cingular Wireless customers in Wisconsin are entitled to refunds from a debt collection agency after it added "illegal fees" to the debts. The collection firm, Afni Inc - a subsidiary of Arrow Financial, added fees equivalent to 15% of the outstanding debts.

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals said that fee was not allowed under Wisconsin law or their cell phone contracts and violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

The court upheld an earlier ruling which will require the distribution of $206,000 in damages, costs and attorneys fees to the customers. The procedure for compensating the customers has not been approved yet.

Wisconsin law does allow 3rd party debt collectors to apply service charges to the debt, but in this situation Afni had brought the debt from Cingular Wireless and could no longer be considered a 3rd party collector.

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Cingular Wireless UMTS / HSDPA

In November 2004 Cingular Wireless announced that it would commercially launch UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) services in 2005. HSDPA is an enhanced version of UMTS which will ultimately support theoretical maximum peak data speeds of up to 14.4Mbps. The company intends to build upon AT&T Wireless's six-market UMTS launches to begin the expansion of a major city and suburban 3G network during 2005, which should allow nationwide coverage in most metropolitan areas by the end of 2006. Cingular Wireless's closest competitors in 3G technology in the US are Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS.

Cingular Wireless, based in Atlanta, is the largest wireless carrier in the United States serving more than 49.1 million subscribers (figure reported January 2005). The company is a joint venture between SBC Communications Inc and BellSouth, and has the largest digital voice and data network in the US, surpassing Verizon Wireless as the biggest US wireless provider in October 2004 after acquiring AT&T Wireless.

CONTRACTORS

The network expansion will be handled by Lucent Technologies, Ericsson and Siemens. Nortel Networks are not involved in this network expansion even though they provided the core system technology for the AT&T Wireless UMTS rollout early in 2004, which Cingular Wireless now controls. The four-year contract is important to Lucent Technologies because it is the company's first major UMTS project.

Each of the suppliers will build a section of the network and supply the HSDPA software upgrades for their particular part. The investment for the Siemens portion of the contract is estimated at over $1 billion. Cingular has not released an overall figure for the cost of the network expansion.

The Cingular UMTS / HSDPA network will initially support data speeds of up to 3.6Mbps (the top speed of the first generation of HSDPA-ready devices expected to become available during 2005). Speeds will increase and will ultimately approach the theoretical maximum of 14.4Mbps as more advanced devices become available. At the same time Cingular has awarded a contract to Nokia to enhance its existing GSM / GPRS / EDGE networks and possibly provide support for additional 3G expansions in the future. Nokia, Siemens, Motorola and LG have all committed to deliver UMTS PCS handsets in 2005 for use on the new network.

LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES FIELD TRIALS

Before the contracts were awarded for the HSDPA network Cingular Wireless had already carried out extensive field trials on the technology (announced in January 2004) with the Lucent Technology UMTS / HSDPA system in Atlanta in mid-2004. This trial used the spectrum in the 1.9GHz band, and end-to-end network equipment from Lucent, including Merlin U520 UMTS PC modem cards, which were developed by Lucent Technology and Novatel Wireless. HSDPA is really only a software upgrade from conventional UMTS gear.

The trial network in Atlanta gave over-the-air data rates of more than 3Mbps, and also supported a wide variety of high-bandwidth multimedia services including high-quality streaming video as well as fast downloads of high-resolution images and other large files. The trial was also able to demonstrate reductions in transmission delays that would enable interactive services and applications such as multi-player video gaming in the mobile market.

The trial Lucent network used their end-to-end commercial UMTS solution, which included Lucent's Flexent OneBTS base stations (Node Bs), which are HSDPA-ready, Flexent Radio Network Controllers (RNC), as well as the UMTS packet core solution, including the Lucent Flexent Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN), and Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN), along with an HSDPA test terminal.
VOICE OVER INTERNET PROTOCOL (VOIP)

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as Internet Voice, is a technology that allows telephone calls to be made using a broadband Internet connection instead of a normal phone line. Some services using VoIP may only allow the user to call other people using the same service, but others may allow the user to call anyone who has a telephone number - including local, long distance, mobile and international numbers. In addition, while some services only work over the computer or a special VoIP phone, other services allow the use of a traditional phone through an adaptor.

VoIP gives users the ability to have simultaneous voice and data sessions, so that they can use a handset to make a call at the same time they are checking e-mail or browsing the internet at high speeds. HSDPA has a theoretical download ceiling of 14Mbps and its low latency (shorter 2msec frame length supports a significantly reduced round trip time) gives it additional speed advantages, allowing for faster loading of Web content and even the possibility of this new VoIP service.

HIGH-SPEED DOWNLINK PACKET ACCESS (HSDPA)

HSDPA is a packet based data service operating in WCDMA downlink. The system does not rely on huge and expensive hardware infrastructure upgrades, but it is a much less expensive software upgrade. The data transmission speeds allow for a theoretical maximum of 14.4Mbps but at the current time this is more likely to be about 4Mbps.

According to 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards, HSDPA Release 4 specifications provide efficient IP support enabling provision of services through an all-IP core network. Release 5 specifications focus on HSDPA to provide data rates up to approx. 10Mbps. MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) systems will be incorporated in Release 6 specifications, which will support even higher data transmission rates of up to 20Mbps.

Further HSDPA enhancements include Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC), Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO), Hybrid Automatic Request (HARQ), fast cell search, and advanced receiver design. This enables support of packet-based multimedia services such as video conferencing over a video phone. By 2007 HSDPA will be the new broadband standard.

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Review of Cingular Wireless

Now on to the network.

In my home town (Reading, PA), the fastest speed I can download is about 70 kbits/sec. Not horrible considering cell phone service is mediocre at best. I was in Scranton and Allentown last week and was able to pull in 300-400 kbits/sec using the UMTS towers in those area's. Surfing the web at 300 kbits is very nice considering its a small device and you don't really go to bandwidth intensive sites. I was able to check on e-mail, read stories on slashdot, digg, and broadband reports while away. The IP Addresses seem to be dynamic in the 166.x.x.x range, but it's really a moot point on a PDA. There is a USB Modem link that will simulate a Cingular PCMCIA network access card, but I was only able to try it out at home. This way of accessing the internet was very slow, but perhaps if in a 3G area it would be sufficient. I did notice that when viewing HTTPS (Secure) sites, the wireless is much slower. Perhaps since the packets are secured, they cannot be compressed any further by Cingular's network management. Overall its a good experience, but the price is pretty steep for unlimited data. Since my company pays for the unlimited voice and data plan, I don't mind having it, but if it was me, I personally wouldn't be able to handle another large bill just for the novilty of wireless internet. Since my job requires it (being a Systems Administrator) I'll take whatever they give me.

As far as the order/install process? Well H.R. department at work handles the ordering, but the device arrived within 2 days. It came inactive and we had to wait on hold for a good half hour to get Cingular to assign it the phone number listed on our order form. Those things should of been taken care of before the device shipped. No bother, the device works fine now. It's easy to install also. Just slide the small sim card in the battery compartment, pop in the battery, close it up and turn it on. I also inserted a 1GB Corsair micro-sd card for storage space.

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Cingular Wireless History

Following AT& T's merger with BellSouth in December 2006, Cingular Wireless is now solely owned by AT&T. Now that branding from Cingular to AT&T is complete, the new AT&T represents the largest wireless company in the United States, with more than 72.9 million subscribers who use the nation's fastest 3G network. Cingular customers can rest assured that they will continue to receive the quality of products and services to which they’ve grown accustomed—exclusive cell phones and mobile devices, cutting-edge technology, and a large selection of rate plans.

AT&T is also dedicated to continue providing customers with wireless technology designed to enrich their lives.

AT&T Advantages Include:

* The nation's fastest 3G network.
* Unlimited calling within the largest mobile-to-mobile calling community—72.9 million people and growing.
* Rollover®, AT&T's exclusive offer on our wireless plans that allow customers to keep their unused Anytime Minutes from month to month.
* An unprecedented selection of handsets and devices to meet every need in the U.S. and while traveling.
* The best international coverage of any carrier worldwide, giving customers the ability to make calls on 7 continents in more than 200 countries and on 120 major cruise ships, with wireless data roaming for laptops, PDAs, and other data services in more than 150 countries. AT&T has the most devices that work in the most places - including Japan and South Korea.
* Cutting-edge data products and services and access to exclusive content from the top names in media and entertainment.
* The best pay-as-you-go offering with GoPhone®.
* A simplified yet comprehensive service summary that spells out exactly what customers are buying and estimated future bills.
* Friendly, high-quality service at every AT&T location.
* A 30-day, no-questions-asked return policy nationwide lets you test out AT&T service stress-free.

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