Cingular finishes $125 million upgrade

Cingular Wireless has completed a $125 million network upgrade to its Idaho and Utah system that includes the addition of 93 new cell sites, 75 of which are in Utah, according to Dewey Garner, director of sales for Utah and southern Idaho.
Utah cell sites include 26 for the Salt Lake area, serving the south and southwest part of the county, as well as new coverage at 4100 South between 3000 West and 7500 West.
Utah County received 21 new sites that cover Alpine, Highland, Pleasant Grove, Orem and Provo.

In the Ogden area, 12 new cell sites are now operational, expanding service in Hooper, West Point, Syracuse and North Ogden.
The St. George area now has nine new cell sites, which has expanded coverage from Snow Canyon through St. George and from Hurricane north to Toquerville.
"This has been a great venture for us and really is just part of our commitment to our customers," Garner said. "We created contractor jobs which were an incredible opportunity for us to go out and put people to work in Utah."
The expanded coverage included a new cell site at the Point of the Mountain, where many cellular calls are dropped.
In Idaho, 12 cell sites were where activated in the Treasure Valley area, which provided enhanced coverage in downtown Boise, Meridian and Nampa.
Beginning next week, Cingular will be branded as AT&T in an effort to save in advertising costs, according to a Bloomberg News article.
"The return of mobile customers to the AT&T brand means a full circle for those users who were with AT&T Wireless until that company was acquired by Cingular in 2004," the article said. "This time, AT&T is dropping wireless from the name.
"AT&T's campaign marks the final stage in its $86 billion acquisition of BellSouth, which closed last month and gave the company full ownership of Cingular. With 35 million residential customers, AT&T wants to offer packaged services of phone, television, Internet and mobile service under one name."