I have my very own Cingular rant to contribute. A couple weeks ago I started my search to get a Treo 650, and was reading a lot of forum posts and articles about Cingular's confusing and convoluted pricing for data plans. From what I was reading, Treo 650 users were being charged a much higer rate for data than users of other devices.

So, I went down to the local Cingular store, and spoke to a sales rep, who was, surprisingly, very knowledgeable. She was familiar with the pricing scheme differences, and said that Cingular are now making a distinction between devices that are "primarily data devices" versus devices that are "primarily phones" and that the Treo 650 fit into the former category. That may be true to some extent, but the service is *exactly the same service* and the difference in price is astounding: $20/month or thereabouts for unlimited data for a "phone" and $79.99/month for unlimited data for a "PDA" like the Treo 650.

Now, as it turns out, some users had managed to get their Treos going on the Cingular network with the cheaper plan, but the sales rep told me that Cingular were starting to deactivate data service on those accounts until the owners settled up. Sure enough, the forum posts started rolling in, with people whose data service went out, and when they called, they were greeted with a friendly "give us more money" from the so-called "customer service" reps.

So, I decided to buy a Treo 650 from Sprint instead, for the same price, but only $15/month for unlimited data usage, and apparently that can be $10 if you play your cards right. Now, I'm not sure what Sprint's service is like in my area, but if it's good enough, Cingular will lose me as a customer. Not that they'll notice...

Really, I think this is pretty typical of a company that suddenly becomes the leader in market share, and thinks they can push everyone around (see also Comcast.) Unfortunately, Cingular's not as much of a monopoly as Comcast, and if they keep this up, I think they'll be finding out just how many users are willing to test the waters elsewhere.

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