The Problem

Disclaimer: All information in this posting is based on widely available information and the author need not have had access to "inside" Cingular information or documents at some time in the past to create this posting.

Cingular needs to move people on the AWS employee rate plan over to the legacy ORANGE rate plan. That's not a corporate thing. It's a GSM thing. But that change creates problems for almost everyone still on the AWS rate plan.

Here's a quick summary of the problem.

• First of all, you MUST switch plans. Cingular needs to cut off all AWS employee plans as of some date (like April 1 (April FOOL)), and YOUR PHONE WILL STOP WORKING.
• But for you to switch plans, you need three things...
  - A Cingular SIM Card (also called an ORANGE SIM)
  - A phone that will accept the SIM, meaning either a Cingular supplied phone OR a GSM phone that has the carrier lock removed -- a.k.a. an unlocked phone.
  - An employee account (that's actually the easy part).
• IMPORTANT: If you haven't already unlocked it, your existing AWS phone that you got for the AWS rate plan WILL NOT WORK. It is locked to AWS. The GSM details are that the old AWS carrier code is 380. The NEW CINGULAR carrier code is 410. Your phone needs either to recognize 410 or to be unlocked so that it doesn't care about 380, 410, or any other carrier code.
• OK... You can buy a new phone. Well... Not so fast there. First of all, all the cheap phones are probably GONE. All the really good, heavily discounted phones are also probably GONE. If you buy a new phone right now, you may end up paying list price for a phone you really don't want. Nobody wants it to be this way, but it's just after Christmas, and lots of people are changing plans.
• So unlocking your phone makes sense. But wait. You are still in trouble because you don't have a SIM card. And we hear by the grape vine that there isn't an obvious way to order just a SIM card inside Cingular.

That in a nutshell is the problem. Employees must switch to the Cingular plan, and when you do, phones become a problem because a handset bought from AWS won't work as is, and even if you unlock it, you still need to come up with an Orange SIM. Look at the "Solutions" posting for some ideas about how to sign up for an Orange employee rate plan while avoiding purchase of yet another GSM phone.