Cingular expects to carry more than 500 billion minutes-of-use (MOU) on its network this year.

Cingular believes the more than $13 billion dollar network investment it made over the past two years to enhance the quality and coverage of its Allover Network is the cause of all the talk by its customers. The network investment gave customers access to more than 45,000 cell sites.

Cingular said people are using its wireless service for 755 minutes a month, as reported at the end of last quarter. The company stated it increased its customer base by nearly 20 percent through the end of October 2006. Additionally, due to the enhanced quality of service experienced by customers, churn also decreased by nearly 20 percent over the same period.

The network enhancements also provide customers with data experience, whether using a laptop to receive broadband wireless connections to corporate and personal e-mail, surfing the Internet, downloading mobile games, or watching clips on Cingular Video. The network connections have driven demand for data services, increasing the average spending by customers more than 45 percent (3Q/05 vs. 3Q/06). The company expects customers to increasingly use data services, especially on its 3G network.

Cingular revealed other things: live version of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” was listened 45 billion times; the customers watched nine seasons of Seinfeld without commercials more than 132 million times; they attended 2.8 billion baseball games.