Oklahoma City Lands new cellular company

[mranderson]

Cingular and AT&T announced that Little Rock based Alltel has bought the Oklahoma assets of the former AT&T, and will start service in Oklahoma City next year.

The current subscribers will convert to Alltel with no noticable changes except the name of their provider. Alltel will rename the AT&T stores Alltel later in the year, and will have to "earn" the subscirbers business when the contracts expire.

Alltel said they have been wanting to enter the Oklahoma City market for several years, but were outbid by US Cellular when they entered in July.

This is good news for AT&T people since Cingular has numerous complaints for bad service. The more the merrier.

[swake]

This is not the case in Tulsa, AT&T will become Cingular

[Keith]

About a week or so ago, I went over to Jackie Cooper electronics at SE.66 & I-35, so that I could add my son to our Cingular family plan. I had just found out recently that since AT&T merged with Cingular, that I could call any AT&T or Cingular customer and talk to them using my unlimited mobile to mobile minutes.

As I spoke to the salesman at Jackie Cooper, he advised me, that within 120 days or so, that customers of AT&T would be required to go with a different cell phone provider. The FCC has decided that since Cingular had bought out AT&T, that they had a monopoly on the cell phone business. The FCC didn't believe that was fair, so they made some changes. From what I was told, there are 11 states that will be affected by this, including Oklahoma.

He told me that former AT&T customers would not make the decision as to what provider they would have, but that they would be assigned to other cell phone providers. I don't know how true this is, however, it was the Cingular salesman that told me this.

So, mranderson, from what you have posted and from what I have heard, we may be on the same wave length. It seems as if we may have another cell phone provider that will be taking some AT&T customers.

One thing I will share with everybody about US Cellular.....I have had several friends who have left AT&T and Cingular, and went to US Cellular. Every one of them have been very dissatisfied with US Cellular, mainly because there would be several places within the City that they would be, yet they would not have a signal. So far, 2 out of the four friends have cancelled with US Cellular (they had a 30 day money back guarantee), and have since gone with Cingular. The other two friends will probably stay with US Cellular, although, all they do is complain about the lack of service. Gee, why be stubborn? If it doesn't work, give it back to them and find a better cell phone provider.

As far as Cingular is concerned, I have been one of their customers for three years now and have never had a problem with them.

[mranderson]

Actually, it was not a wave length. I read it in the Oklahoman this morning.

[Patrick]

Glad toh ear a new wireless company is entering the market. And Alltel seems to be a good one, from what I've heard! Guess we'll find out! Also, thanks swake for the info. about the Tulsa market. I guess different companies are taking on the AT&T clients in different markets.