Fewer bars in fewer places. According to unconfirmed reports out of New York City, AT&T/Cingular wireless service has been down for 2-3 hours, as of 12:50 PM EST.

Ah, the growing paigns of merging.

Let us know if this for reals. Just don't call it in on your Cingular celli.

(Thanks to Bucky!)

UPDATE: Jennifer Brown writes, "Earlier this morning I checked my phone and there was a funny icon next to the bars. It looked like a receiver, but with a slash through it.I tried calling my phone and it went right to voicemail. The icon has vanished, but I just tried calling my phone from a land line and it still goes into voicemail. I can't check my v.mail from my phone, or make outgoing calls either. Cingular has been "working on the problem." Right."

UPDATE: Jen Bekman (apparently Cingular doesn't like Jennifers) writes, "Confirming that Cingular is indeed down since earlier this morning. If you call customer support there's a pre-recorded announcment assuring us that they are aware of and working on the problem. The whole ATT/Cingular thing is a wretched horrible nightmare. I've spent hours upon precious hours on hold with them since I switched over my (better, more reliable, old school) ATT service to a Cingular plan back in the Fall."

It's not just the wretched iPod ripoff ads (instead of shadows, we'll use reflections!) that suck cat pee through a glass of vermouth, the service sucks too!

UPDATE: Adam writes, "Thy've been down for my entire office here in midtown west. They''ve been down since I get in today at 10." [sic]

So...Cingular is down. The question now is, why? And guess what? "We're working on it," doesn't cut the mustard.

UPDATE: As of 3:35 PM today, we received a report that the service is back up and running. Yay. Now we can all go back to our regularily scheduled crappy service.

Image courtesy ScrewCingular.com.