time for a cell-ebration?

Thursday, November 11, 2004, at 08:14PM

By Eric Richardson

So I'm pretty sure that between 6:30pm or so and now something dramatically changed with cell phone coverage in my apartment. Living downtown, indoor cell reception isn't always the greatest. In my apartment it's been really bad, basically where you needed to stand next to the window to have a decent conversation.

Tonight I went to plug my phone in to charge, and the first thing I noticed was a new "AT&T/Cingu" network tag. Hmmm... Merger's finally taking shape.

Next thing I notice: I have five bars of coverage sitting at my desk. I call voicemail and walk around the apartment. I get down to 3 bars at our door, but no lower.

This could be a beautiful thing. Maybe those AT&T commercials where the people had bars over their heads weren't a lie.

Update (a few minutes later): It looks like what's happened is the AT&T network tag has been changed to be dual, while the Cingular one still just says Cingular. The AT&T one gives me a lot better coverage in my apartment right now, though, so I've moved it up my network priority list.