T-Mobile Pearl Screen Reading Cingular

Author: r. nelson

31 Jan

My T-Mobile Pearl was saying Cingular and giving me a Call Failed. What gives?

Here is the story…

So I was in Lowe’s complaining about the crappy job that a sub-contractor of theirs did and I turned to leave and grabbed my T-Mobile Pearl from my pocket and tried to make a call, it gave me a beep along with a pop-up of sorts that read Call Failed. Ok I thought no big deal, maybe I was to far into the store and was getting bad reception. So I tried that call again just before the door, same thing happened, Call Failed. Thinking I was way to close to the door I looked at the “bars” on the phone and noticed that where my phone normally reads “T-Mobile” it now read “Cingular”. Strange I don’t like Cingular and do not remember switching. What gives? It did go back to normal as soon as I got a few feet out the door but I am not sure why that happened.

This may be somewhat normal or even very normal but I have never noticed it before. Is this normal or has anyone had something similar happen?

The T-Mobile wording is on the screen towards the top in the center, just below the battery icon. Sorry I could not get a better photo of the screen, I wish I new how to take a screenshot on a mobile just in case it happens again.

Here is the phone in a larger pic.

Filed under: Blog

2 Responses for "T-Mobile Pearl Screen Reading Cingular"

arnell the blaster February 1st, 2007 at 11:07:58 1
What a lot of people don’t realize, is that T-Mobile uses Cingular’s network. Specifically, AT&T’s original network, before Cingular bought them out. As you know, Cingular is now AT&T again, but I’m referrring to AT&T’s network, prior Cingular buying them out.

What either company won’t admit, is that T-Mobile doesn’t have a built in infrastructure, so they obviously had to lease for these facilities. After Cingular bought AT&T’s network, they leased it out to T-Mobile. Also included in the deal is for them to use Cingular facilities where the AT&T network is weak or non-existent. At times, when you’re not getting a good signal, the network will normally switch you seemlessly from either or network, which most users will never notice. At times, you’ll actually see the carrier name show up on your phone.

On most occassions, it normally will show if a T-Mobile customer jumps on the Cingular network, but not vise vesa. I’ve asked one of my buddies, who was an old SBC/Cingular tech (now AT&T), why and he states, it’s about the network coverage. There is simply more Cingular coverage than T-Mobiles (AT&T’s old network). Also, most T-Mobile phones are not locked. Meaning, the phone will not inherently find just one network and not drop, if no network can be found. For instance, you can put the SIM card from a Cingular phone into a T-Mobile phone and it will work. On most phones, if you do the opposite, T-Mobile SIM to a Cingular phone, it won’t work, because the phone is locked to Cingular’s network. For the most part, this isn’t the case with a lot of new phones, but some phones are still locked this way
iphones May 22nd, 2008 at 7:00:46 2
I searched for \’T-mobile Phones\’ at google and found this your post (\’ile Pearl Screen Reading Cingular\’) in search results. Not very relevant result, but still interesting to read.