| John Navas 2005-08-10, 2:48 am |
| Post-merger Cingular still has two separate networks, the old ATTWS (blue)
network and the old Cingular (orange) network. While both ATTWS and Cingular
customers can now freely roam on the other network, thus given all subscribers
the same coverage, frequency band issues aside, the difference is that such
roaming can only happen when there is no "usable" home network signal, and a
"usable" signal can actually be pretty crappy.
In other words, ATTWS (blue) handsets will only roam on the Cingular (orange)
network if there is no "usable" ATTWS (blue) network signal, and vice versa,
even with ENS. Thus in any given location a blue handset may get much better
service (on the blue network) than an orange handset (given a "usable" orange
signal), and vice versa.
The new Cingular ENS handsets and Cingular (orange) 64K SIMs (if you have
both) make it possible for Cingular to manually change your "home" network (to
blue or orange) OTA (over the air), thus giving subscribers the better of the
two networks until the two networks are actually integrated. However, even
with ENS, the handset still *isn't* able to automatically select the better
network signal -- GSM roaming rules still apply.
|