Cingular Wireless Internet Access? 4/23/07

A long time ago and a short time ago. In a place both near and far away a professor purchased an unlocked SLVR L7 Motorola cell phone from newegg.com. I switched my service to Cingular Wireless the New AT&T. The professor decided to add unlimited internet access to his cell phone. Cingular added the Internet service to my cell. I tried to access the Internet and it was refused.

I went on Cingular's website to look for the tutorial for my cell phone. It was not their. I called back Cingular for assistance with my access to the web. I was told that it was impossible to access the web because my cell phone was not purchased from Cingular. I called back again and was told the same thing but at this time I said that this cannot be possible. I was switched to tech support where I was again told it would not work. I asked why not? After a conversation the tech support person sent me an e-mail but reinforced that it will not work. There was the tutorial for my L7 cell phone on the Cingular website. On the tutorial it explains how to program my cell for Cingular web access. I spent about two hours and finally got the changes into my cell. It worked.

Marketing Application INSTRUCTIONAL

Cingular appears to be attempting to increase sales of their cell phones. A percentage of customers when told that their cell will not work on the internet will then purchase a Cingular cell phone. Cingular emphasizes that they do not support cell phones that are not purchased from Cingular. They are sorry but you are just out of luck.

The people in customer service are most likely just repeating what they have been told in Cingular's training. Granted a cell purchased outside of Cingular will take time to change for them to attain the Internet. It is not easy. The Internet access that I purchased for Cingular is 20 dollars a month.

It appears to be that the cell phone revenue and the time that the customer must sign a contract for is far greater than that of gains through Internet sales to those with their on cell.

The question then is if a company can tell a customer something that is not true to increase and protect their revenues? The simple path and the most lucrative one appears to be to create an untrue story.