Some of you have been asking us about this odd SMS messages many AT&T Wireless customers received today: “Sony Ericsson and AT&T Wireless have sent you a new T226 phone to replace your current T68-no strings attached. Questions. Call 866-500-3821.” When the phone number is called, however, it appears to not work, which led many of you to question to validity of the message.
We spoke to Rich Blasi, AT&T Wireless spokesman, who clarified a few things for us.
First, the message is from AT&T Wireless, and no it’s not a scam. As part of the new 850MHz GSM upgrade that is going on in many of their markets, AT&T has decided to proactively send out the T226 in markets where it feels the new phone will provide a “better experience” than the T68. However, the use of the new phone is optional, and customers may continue to use their old phones if they choose. AT&T is not removing the 1900Mhz band from its service areas, and while the T226 will likely be “better for voice”, the T68 (and other deprecated phones) will work just fine. If you’d like to use both phones, you can switch your SIM card back-and-forth to the one you’d like to use.
It seems AT&T overlaid over half of the cell sites in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut markets with new 850Mhz hardware, and decided to push the phones out before customers started calling in.
Of course, I don’t think AT&T would be giving away the Sony Ericsson T226 phones if it didn’t foresee a potential problem, and it would have been nice if they’d sent out phones that were as full-featured as the T68, so there would be no desire to switch back-and-forth.
