What is the latest on cincular's network upgrade?

[paneraiguy]

There were talks about 3g coming to US with cingular. When should we realistically expect this to happen?

[TheZodiac]

Nov 1st. (whoa today!) Supposedly for their 3G rollout. I would hsve suspected the blogs to be covering such a thing - engadget or gizmoodo, phonescoop or something. So fsr today.. nothing.

What 3G phone, if any do you plan on getting?

[brad]

@TheZodiac - Sure you weren't thinking of Sprint?

[Box215]

yeah, i dont think cingular is gonna launch 3G til next year.

[carcomptoy]

I thought they said they planned a November 1st rollout of their UMTS network...I guess it didn't fall through...haha TheZodiac's not crazy;)

haha I could care less about Sprint:p Stupid POWERVision

[TheZodiac]

Spring would be EV-DO What I am talking about is HSPDA or UMTS. Whch, Cing is already trying in some markets - FL supposedly. I may have had the date wrong, of course, but I NEVER speak of CDMA networks ever. I simply have no interest. I only keep up with the GSM varients.

Ill try to find my source, though.

20 seconds later:
http://www.godmode.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6274

This outlines the article, which has since not been commented on by other blogs who orginally reported it.

Thanks for brining it to my attention though. Im going to look more into it.

[jayesh]

oh well... americans atleast have one decent handset to use on wcdma now.

[carcomptoy]

haha yes;)

I seriously did think that Cingular was supposed to release UMTS on November 1...ask jmax_577!

[carcomptoy]

Check this out...neither me nor thezodiac are crazy!:p

From engadget.com:
They don’t specifically differentiate between UMTS and HSDPA zones, but residents of Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Baltimore, Boston, Washington, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Portland, SLC, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, and Tacoma can expect a November 1st launch of a network providing at least “average download data speeds of 220-320 kbps.”
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000547063330/

[TheZodiac]

Thanks Car.. I knew I wasnt nuts ;) I believe thats the article from my GODMODD post :-P

GOOD WORK SLUETHS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now where is it Cing?

[tdrozdowski]

I can't speak for the rest of the country, but I got the following info from my local Cingular rep at a store in N. Scottsdale, AZ. Take it for what its worth (but it sounds reasonable):

He said while they have some UTMS sites up, they aren't very widespread - particularly in AZ. I guess this what they meant by a Nov 1st 'launch' of UTMS. They currently only have one phone for it - the giant Nokia phone that ATT had. He went on to say that the tower furthest north in the Phoenix area was right by the store (at Scottsdale & Bell Rd - lots of city north of there that still need coverage.) It sounded like that if you don't live/work/travel in the 'core' of the city, then you're out of luck for the moment. His claim is to expect a formal launch in January for PHX. By then he claims all towers in AZ that provide Cingular coverage will also provide UTMS, and that will coincide with the launch of a 'number of' UTMS enabled phones.

While I'm anxious for UTMS and to get a better replacement for my lemon Treo 650, I think I'm going to wait about a year for all this to settle down. Cingular didn't do well when they bought ATT in the PHX area, and as a result I'm skeptical that the UTMS switch will be better. (I don't even get basic coverage at my house in a new area NW of PHX)

[carcomptoy]

heh I'm gonna wait till T-Mobile releases their own UMTS...in 2007!!:mad: I figure by then, we'll have WAY better selection of phones, and hopefully the much coveted 2100MHz band that'll go on auction next year...if T-Mobile gets that, they'll have a monopoly of Eurasian WCDMA phones:D Also, hopefully the kinks will at least have been addressed by then as well, and that there will have been people to actual video call with:p