Who’s Talking Now? Everyone! Cingular Customers Talk 500,000,000,000 Minutes in One Year

Who’s Talking Now? Everyone! Cingular Customers Talk 500,000,000,000 Minutes in One Year

Throughout this year, when Cingular customers talked, people listened, and talked, and listened, back and forth, on and on and on and on. They talked so much that, for the first time, Cingular today said it expects to carry more than 500 billion minutes-of-use (MOU) on its network this year. That’s a lot of gabbing. But why so much chatter?

Cingular believes the more than $13 billion dollar network investment it made over the past two years to enhance the quality and coverage of its Allover Network is the cause of all the talk by its customers. The network investment gave customers access to more than 45,000 cell sites, resulting in a substantial reduction in dropped and blocked calls as well as improved voice quality. “It’s common-sense business. If you give customers a quality product, they’ll use it more often,” said Ed Reynolds, president of network services for Cingular. “The investment we made is really paying off for us and our customers. People have noticed the difference and are taking full advantage of our services.”

Cingular, which offers the fewest dropped calls of any carrier, said people are using its wireless service for longer periods — an average of 755 minutes a month, as reported at the end of last quarter. Over the course of the network enhancements, the average length of a wireless call on the Allover Network has increased as much as 15 percent in some markets.

Read the complete Press Release