One of Cingular's biggest pitches is the "Unlimited Nights and Weekends" offer. According to Cingular, the customer is allowed to make an unlimited amount of calls between the hours of 8:00 pm to 6:59 am and all day Saturday and Sunday without any airtime minutes being deducted from his or her calling plan. While the offer sounds very attractive, there is a slight catch. Cingular touted this plan so effectively that many customers signed up because of this added bonus. Unfortunatly, Cingular lacked the foresight to build enough cell sites to accomodate the heavy usage during the forementioned time. As a result, whenever you try to make a call after 8:00 pm, your phone will most likely give you a "System Busy" message and your call will not go through. On average, it takes about 10-15 redials before the call will go through and even then you still stand a good chance of having the call dropped due to heavy usage. Additionally, anyone who tries to call you will be automatically forwarded to your voicemail, another feature you will be unable to access for two reasons:
Heavy usage during the off-peak "Unlimited" hours, rendering your phone almost totally useless.
Cingular does not allow its California customers to access their voicemail on any line other than the cell phone to which the voicemail belongs to. So say for instance, you are at work and forgot your cell phone at home but would like to check your messages... too bad. In California, this service is called "Enhanced Voicemail" and is available only if you pay a monthly fee.
In the six months that I've had my phone with Cingular, I have called repeatedly to find out when they plan on having enough cell sites built to accomodate the heavy usage but they never give me any tentative dates or direct answers. One customer service manager even went so far as to tell me that they have stopped advertising the "Unlimited Nights and Weekends" offer as vigorously as they previously had because of all the problems it has caused. However, a few days later, I heard two commercials for it on the radio and I still see advertisements plastered all over their website and in the newspapers.