Cingular got a lot more than it bargained for when it purchased AT&T Wireless, namely in the form of TDMA. Since Cingular’s early days as Pacific Bell PCS, it’s been doing the European defacto signal of choice, GSM. So what to do with all the TDMA customers it adopted from Ma Bell? Try to get them off the older (yet better signal) network, dude! Con them into getting a new phone…a new GSM phone. Give them offers that will draw them over to the dark side. And if all that doesn’t work, heck, slap them with a $5 monthly fee!

That’s right all you TDMA using freaks will now get pinged with an additional “service charge” for using that beloved Nokia of yours every month until 2008. 2008 is the magic number for Cingular and other providers that allow them to turn off the old towers without fines from the FCC.

So if you’re phone is worth about $100 in additional charges to you, more power to ya! If not, maybe it’s time to move onto a cellular company that doesn’t nickle-and-dime you for everything, huh?

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