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48 of 51 Cingular Stores in Southeast and Southwest Florida Are Open; Several Provide Free Calling for Wilma Victims BOCA RATON, Fla., Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Cingular Wireless today announced it has restored the majority of its network in the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Wilma, including Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Collier, and Lee counties, and has reopened 48 of its 51 stores located in southeast and southwest Florida. "We have made incredible progress in bringing cell sites back up on the air and in reopening our stores," said Rich Guidotti, vice president and general manager for Cingular's South Florida market. "We are seeing a significant improvement in service by the hour. Despite the quick progress we are making, customers will still experience some network congestion as people start using their wireless phones all at once." Since Wilma hit on Monday, Cingular has deployed more than 300 portable generators in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River, Lee, and Collier counties, and has more than 400 technicians and engineers working around the clock to fully restore the network in the impacted areas. In addition, 186 of the company's cell sites in South Florida are being powered by permanent generators. Cingular continues to work closely with the local telephone company and utilities to restore the remaining cell sites. Nearly half of Cingular's retail stores were reopened within 24 hours of the storm. By October 27, 40 out of 43 South Florida Cingular stores had reopened and all eight stores in the Naples and Fort Myers area had reopened. Three South Florida stores remain closed due to damage from Wilma. Starting October 28, free calling stations have been available at the following Cingular stores for victims of Wilma who don't have any other way to reach their loved ones: * 2176 58th Avenue, Vero Beach * 2205 State Road 7, The Plaza at Wellington Green, Wellington * 8200 Glades Road, Boca Raton * 11410 Pines Boulevard, Pembroke Pines Mall * 18275 Pines Boulevard, Pembroke Pines * 2242 Weston Road, Weston * 1290 West 49th Street, Hialeah * 5600 N.W. 167th Street, Hialeah * 10003 N.W. 41st Street, Miami * 1601 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach While Cingular continues to restore its network in the impacted areas, the company is encourages customers to: * Use text messaging versus making a voice call. Text messages don't require as much bandwidth and typically go through much quicker. * Keep non-emergency wireless calls to a minimum. This way the voice channels are kept open for emergency officials depending on wireless communication during their rescue operations and recovery process. * If you have trouble getting a wireless call out on your first attempt, wait 10 seconds before redialing. This allows your original call data to clear the network before you try again. About Cingular Wireless Cingular Wireless is the largest wireless carrier in the United States, serving 52.3 million customers. Cingular, a joint venture between SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC) and BellSouth Corporation (NYSE:BLS), has the largest digital voice and data network in the nation -- the ALLOVER(SM) network -- and the largest mobile-to-mobile community of any national wireless carrier. Cingular is the only U.S. wireless carrier to offer Rollover(R), the wireless plan that lets customers keep their unused monthly minutes. Details of the company are available at http://www.cingular.com/. Get Cingular Wireless press releases e-mailed to you automatically. Sign up at http://cingular.mediaroom.com/. DATASOURCE: Cingular Wireless CONTACT: Kelly Layne Starling, Cingular Wireless, +1-561-775-4259, Web site: http://www.cingular.com/

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