TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Cingular Wireless Gets Sued; Refutes Claims; Plans Copuntersuit

Cingular Wireless Gets Sued; Refutes Claims; Plans Copuntersuit

Reuters News Wire (reuters@telecom-digest.org)
Fri, 7 Jul 2006 18:37:30 -0500

Cingular Wireless, one of the largest U.S. mobile phone carriers, on
Friday indignantly refuted claims in a lawsuit that it misled and
overcharged some customers, and said it is considering coutersuing.

The claims, made by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights
and filed on behalf of seven plaintiffs, are "completely without
merit, and just a lie" said Joaquin Carbonell, Cingular's general counsel.

The foundation filed its lawsuit on Thursday in federal court in
Seattle charging that Cingular reneged on its promise to provide AT&T
Wireless customers with new and better services. Cingular bought AT&T
Wireless for $41 billion in October 2004.

Instead, Cingular "immediately began dismantling and degrading the
AT&T network, forcing AT&T customers to move to Cingular's cell
network," the foundation said.

Cingular then forced AT&T customers to pay $18 to transfer or upgrade
their service to its wireless network, and charged others $175 early
termination fee if they tried to switch to another company, the group
said.

"Others who didn't want to pay or couldn't afford the fees have been
stuck with riding out their contract with AT&T Wireless while
suffering poor to no reception," the group said in a statement.

The lawsuit says that "the amount in controversy" exceeds $5 million,
and that the plaintiffs are seeking triple that amount in damages.

Cingular said it is considering its options including filing a
counter-suit.

Cingular said it spent nearly $10 billion to integrate and improve its
networks over 21 months since the merger was completed.

Copyright 2006 Reuters Limited.

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new
articles daily. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at
http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or)
http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html

For more news headlines and stories, please go to:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/internet-news.html

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: telecomdirect_daily: "TelecomDirect News Daily Update - July 07, 2006"
Go to Previous message: Reuters News Wire: "Navy Probes Data Leak on 100,000 Sailors, Marines"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page