Cingular vs. Sprint? Looking for Advice on switching
 

First off I apologize if 1) There is a thread on this already... though I do feel my dilemma is unique enough to start my own thread and 2) If this is in the wrong forum...

My current setup: I have a Sprint Plan with 5 lines on it, 1 is a blackberry 7250 that I use as my mobile phone, personal email, and work email. Three of the 5 lines are still under contract, including the blackberry. I can get rid of one of the lines not under contract so for arguments sake lets say I have 4 lines, 3 under contract. The three areas where these phones are used mainly are NYC (BB), Orlando, and Baltimore.

My possible setup: I think I want to move to Cingular.. I have had sprint for over 7 years and while I have bene happy with it, I have always wanted the newest phones and a GSM provider. Though I hear Cingular has the least dropped calls and largest coverage area, that isin't hugely important to me since my Sprint service has been very good in the areas I use it. I would like to get the 8700 (unless someone has a really strong case for a 7100 series over an 8700) and though I do know it will come out for Sprint at some point.. I want to think ahead since the newest blackberries should come out in GSM first in the future.

If I wanted to switch over to Cingular I would have to do the following:

1. Pay 150 to surrender the contract on the blackberry line with Sprint
2. Close out one of the other lines on Sprint
3. Pay X amount for an 8700 and a RAZR or equivalent through cingular.
4. Downgrade my Sprint Plan to run the 3 lines and get a new Cingular family plan for the 2 lines I move over.
5. The remaining 2 lines under contract with sprint are up in Nov 06 and April 07, and I could move them over to Cingular when the contract expires and be fully Cingular with 4 lines by April 07 (or Nov 06 if I want to pay 150 for the April contract and move everything over in Nov)

If I ran 2 lines on sprint and 2 on cingular until the other sprint contracts were up, my monthly bill would remain pretty much the same as it is now with 4 lines on sprint. I would get hit with a cost of around $330 for a cingular 8700 and RAZR (unless someone knows of a better deal through cingular itself as I have heard horror stories about wirefly and amazon). Now other than the 150 surrender fee, I figure the cost of the sprint 8700 will be around 300 for me anyway, so maybe this switch to cingular would work?

What do you guys think? Do I make no sense? Good idea? Stupid idea? Any advice would be great.

Thanks,
Mike

Sounds to me like the only reason you're changing is to replace your 7250 with an 8700. If that change is worth $500 to you, go for it. I would pass, but my financial situation/desire for an 8700 could be quite different from yours.

i made a similar move when i switched from vzw to cingular. i'm glad i did. it cost me a bit... but i don't regret it. you could offset some of the costs by selling your sprint phone(s) on ebay.. that helped me out a bit. gsm service is very nice, especially when you are using data capable phones because even if you're in an area that is covered by a cingular partner (ie extended area) you don't loose capabilities (ie i couldn't do picture messaging or web browsing in extended network areas).

phish fan i presume? ;)

BOHIC: Yes around 500, but I also keep in mind that the 8700 for Spint will probably run me about 350.. so basically I am just spending 150 to move to Cingular, and I am trying to determine if Cingular is worth it for me and the others on my plan

byron: Do you miss vzw at all? That service is a bit better than sprint and you still went to Cingular? My berry has been weird lately and I have equip protection so I could spend $50 to get a replacement from Sprint and ebay that for about $175... And yes, phish fan :D

Sprint must be charging you quite a bit if having a family plan with both Sprint and Cingular would be equivalent in price to only having a family plan through Sprint. It's really a judgement call that you have to make as to whether the switch is worth it or not.

i know exactly what you mean and i can honestly say that i've never been in a situation where i had coverage with verizon and have zero/bad coverage with cingular. in fact, i've noticed having service in places that i didn't have with verizon. the only complaint i have with cingular is handoff issues... sometimes the att & cingular towers don't play nice and hand off the calls cleanly which results in a dropped call. this is what i did, i went to cingular and get my berry and set up a line of service for it. i carried two phones for a couple weeks and compared service/coverage/etc... after 2 weeks i was satisifed and submitted the port for my number. if i would have been unhappy, i return the berry and close the account no questions asked and i'm out maybe $30-40 (or whatever the prorated cost of the service would be).

If you wanna keep using 3rd party apps that access the internet (weather, IM, news/rss) I'd stick with Sprint. Cingular has the tendency to block up their ports... It's the reason I left.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry 8700c: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry8700/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

Once you switch to Cingular, you definately won't regret it. The only question is do you really want to spend all that money to switch. You said that you have been with Sprint for 7 years, well what would a few more months hurt? You would save a whole lot of money if you just finish out your contract(s) with Sprint then make the switch. Then you could do what someone said earlier and sell your Sprint phones on eBay and probably make enough to cover the charges for the Cingular phones.

But I made the switch to Cingular from Alltel and I haven't looked back. Coverage is 100 times better and contrary to what several people have said on here, I've had no problems with customer service.

Cingular vs Sprint
 

You should see if you can suspend the phones. I have heard that this can be done on Sprint I am not sure if this can be done for all the phones ont he plan but it is something to ask Sprint.

Also I think you have to do a comparison of the plans and the features you have on the plan. Cinigular is good for International use since it is on the GSM network ant that is used more outside the U.S.. Sprint is good within the U.S. being CDMA based.

I think you have to look at eveyrthing PLAN cost, equipment cost, coverage, speed, etc....IMO.

You just need to make sure Cingular, or whomever, has coverage where you will use the device.

Wirelessly posted (Cingular 7130c: BlackBerry7130/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

I've been with Cingular for over 7 years. You couldn't pay me to switch carriers.