Cingular turns me on!
In 2005 when Cingular announced that it was deploying it's new 3g service (UMTS) in the Chicago area, I was very excited... until I discovered that they were including everything except the western suburbs!
To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement! Here I am, a guy that revels in tech toys... and I've been excluded from this great service! (Can you say geek?) I use Cingular because it is the only service that works everywhere that I need it to... I've tried all of them over the years. Being a geek, I purchased a 3g modem on eBay for the few times that I would be in an area where I could make use of the service. The modem tells you by color what system you've locked into... red is bad (not working) green is standard service (EDGE in this area) blue when you are in a 3G area.
Cingular said that they hoped to have other areas turned on by the end of 2006, but weren't making any announcements. the City of Naperville is contracting for free WIFI and I was starting to focus that.... and suffering (with dignity) the slow EDGE modem speeds (at the same price as the fast connections elsewhere..I might add)
Sitting in the local Starbucks on 75th street while enjoying a vente coffee and chocolate chip cookie (exercising great restraint by only eating one) expecting the normal, pokey EDGE speeds... when my light turned blue. Working to calm myself (maybe the modem was confused)... I nervously fired up a speedtest... YES! Almost 1mb per second... WooHoo! Broadband at last!
I checked the Cingular site, but the map hadn't changed...hmm... maybe they just turned it on for a test...then I thought that maybe it was working at the Starbucks because there is a Cingular store two doors down. (OK, so maybe I'm a little "overboard" about this stuff)
I drove to the Edard Health and Fitness Center (remember that cookie?) and tried again in their parking lot (it worked!) While I was sharing this reveation in the locker room I was shocked to discover that not all people share my enthusiasm.... imagine that! The great thing is that I still get to look forward to them turning on the even faster HSDPA next year!
Well... to lengthen and already long story, I've happily been using the service ever since. However, a new issue has cropped up... the EDGE speed of my Treo 650 accessing e-mail and the web is driving me crazy and I may have to purchase new phone... but, that's another story.
Posted by Angus at 10:53 AM
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