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Cingular bought AT&T

Cingular bought AT&T wireless today, and I think this might be a good thing. First off, AT&T was already in the process of upgrading it’s networks to the new 3G stuff (I think it is called EDGE) which is for higher data rates making wireless video streamed to your phone possible, and better wireless internet to the phone and such things. Also, that means that cingular could have better area coverage for their new GSM network. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about in the US there are three main standards that cellular phones use. The old one which supports analog and digital transmission, and is what cingular still has for old phones like mine is TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) and they have amazing coverage with this network. I actually got a signal at the Grand Canyon with my phone a couple years back. Now, Europe uses GSM, which is what the new network Cingular is building is, and AT&T had a GSM network. The final type is CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) which is what Verizon and some other people use, and it is being pushed pretty much just in the US, also some people are lobbying congress to get it installed in Iraq, which is dumb cuz that means their phones won’t work anywhere else in the Middle east, but I digress. But I currently have Cingular and I have been a fan of their pricing system and coverage area for a while, but when they switched over to GSM their coverage gets much more sparse. Currently they run both networks, which is good, but I was waiting to get a GSM phone until they had better coverage.

So, Cingular buying AT&T is a good thing I think, hopefully it will add services that Cingular offers, and be better for the consumer in many ways. I’m not too worried about the loss of competition, because quite frankly, I found AT&T’s prices to be entirely to high to consider them much of a competitor to Cingular and Verizon in the long run. Also, this will hopefully allow me to get an even cooler phone that does neat video stuff.

Well I found that interesting this morning, so I thought I would share.

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5 Comments

  1. Matt says

    Whether or not EDGE is actually 3G is really kind of debatable, but it does allow much higher data rates. UMTS is generally considered 3G. In some cases, EDGE will be deployed as a stand-alone 3G, while others will use EDGE as a step towards UMTS.

    I also agree that this could be a much better thing for coverage purposes. As for pricing, we’ll have to see. I’m still feel that one less competitor (I still feel that AT&T is a competitor just by the nature that they’re providing the same services) will give more leverage to the carriers rather than the consumers.

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