Cingular wireless is expanding its coverage in Martin and the surrounding area. The wireless company’s recent activation of 11 new cellular sites in the area promises to dramatically increase reception for Cingular customers in the Martin/Dyersburg area, and everywhere in between.

“With a local investment of 2.6 million dollars, Cingular now covers over 2,000 square miles in the Martin/Dyersburg area alone,” says Calie Shackleford, Cingular’s PR manager for the region.

With the expanded coverage come a few new products to further meet the needs of local customers, such as polyphonic ringtones, camera phones, pop3 e-mail, wireless Internet, rollover and multi-media messaging. Of special interest to UTM students, Cingular will run a special promotion in the Martin area beginning Nov. 2.

Every customer who signs up for Cingular service receives a free Nokia 3595 phone, along with 500 bonus rollover minutes. Says Shackleford, “Rollover minutes are great for months where you might use more minutes than normal like December and January with all the holidays.”

“Cingular is proud to offer the Dyersburg market a GSM network that is second to none,” says Keith Traster, Cingular’s general manager for West Tennessee. “With over a 300% increase in coverage in the Dyersburg greater area, our customers can expect outstanding coverage from Memphis to Reelfoot Lake, Dyersburg, Martin, Union City and points in between.”

Part of the quality assurance program involved engineers driving in and around the northwest Tennessee area, making calls and monitoring signal strength.

Because so many college students have cellular phones, many of these drive tests included significant testing on and around the UTM campus where network performance received the highest marks from the Cingular engineers.

For more information about Cingular service, call your local retailer or visit Cingular.com.