Roaming - calling features

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Steve Sobol - 20 Jul 2005 05:34 GMT

Hello,

I just ported my wife's phone number, and my phone number, from Sprint to
T-Mobile. I was wondering how many (if any) calling features like voicemail
notification, caller ID, call forwarding, etc., are available when I roam
off T-Mobile's network onto the network of another US GSM carrier.

I have been told that GSM is a lot better in this respect than CDMA. With
all of the CDMA carriers I've used that allow roaming - GTE Mobilnet,
Alltel, and most recently Sprint PCS and Verizon - feature availability is a
crapshoot at best.

My favorite example of that is moving from Cleveland to Apple Valley,
California in 2003, and driving through Little Rock. No Verizon coverage,
but Verizon roaming partner Alltel covers Arkansas.

Considering that Alltel's corporate HQ is in Little Rock, you'd expect their
network to work properly, but Alltel didn't apparently even pass Caller ID
to my Verizon phone!

Thanks in advance,
**SJS

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Mike Schumann - 20 Jul 2005 05:37 GMT

My experience is that virtually all features work all of the time when I am
roaming.

Mike Schumann

> Hello,
>
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
> Thanks in advance,
> **SJS

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Steve Sobol - 20 Jul 2005 05:42 GMT

> My experience is that virtually all features work all of the time when I am
> roaming.

Good.

Now, Sprint has an addon to their traditional calling plans - normally you
can't roam off-network without paying for the privilege, but for $5/extra
per month you can use up to 50% of your actual monthly usage roaming. But at
least 50% of the airtime you use in any given month must be on Sprint's
network, or they may remove the $5 addon and start charging you per-minute
for roaming. Is there any such restriction with T-Mobile? (not that I plan
on roaming off-network often...)

Thanks again.

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Corvus - 20 Jul 2005 06:23 GMT

While roaming, most of my features worked, except my caller ID info was
not passed on while dialing out (roaming on Cingular in northeast OK
and SW Missouri, my calls showed up as UNAVAILABLE. Also while roaming,
your T-Mo to T-Mo mins come out of your anytime minutes, not sure about
night and weekend minutes while roaming though.

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Joseph - 20 Jul 2005 14:45 GMT

>But at
>least 50% of the airtime you use in any given month must be on Sprint's
>network, or they may remove the $5 addon and start charging you per-minute
>for roaming. Is there any such restriction with T-Mobile? (not that I plan
>on roaming off-network often...)

VoiceStream used to have a proviso that stated that you had to have a
certain percentage of calling from your home area but that has been
gone for years since they introduced national plans with long distance
included and no roaming. I know someone with T-Mobile who lives in
North Carolina and has been living there for years and still maintains
her T-Mobile service and has never been threatened by the company to
change her plan or terms of her service. The thing you do have to
remember with T-Mobile though that even though there are never any
roaming charges if there's no roaming agreement with any particular
carrier you will not be able to use your service and you'll basically
get no service. This however is very rare since T-Mobile has roaming
agreements with smaller carriers as well as with cingular, Suncom,
Dobson, etc.

- -

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Steve Sobol - 20 Jul 2005 20:07 GMT

> change her plan or terms of her service. The thing you do have to
> remember with T-Mobile though that even though there are never any
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> agreements with smaller carriers as well as with cingular, Suncom,
> Dobson, etc.

That echoes the comments my father-in-law made a couple days ago when we
decided to switch. He's a T-Mobile customer and uses his phone everywhere in
the US and in many places abroad.

Thanks for the input.

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Cyrus Afzali - 20 Jul 2005 20:29 GMT

>> change her plan or terms of her service. The thing you do have to
>> remember with T-Mobile though that even though there are never any
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>> agreements with smaller carriers as well as with cingular, Suncom,
>> Dobson, etc.

It depends on where you travel. There are large parts of the country
-- such as small towns in the Southeast -- where you'll have
absolutely no service once you get off interstate corridors. I forgot
to test whether I could register on the 850 mHz Cingular system on my
Treo 600 the last time I was in TN. I'll try again next time I'm
there. That's one area that's almost exclusively 850.

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AL - 20 Jul 2005 14:17 GMT

> Hello,
>
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
>Snip

I would have gone back to Verizon. Last time I was in Little Rock, all
features worked fine for me on Verizon.
I did not check my GSM Cingular phone, but the sister-in-law has Cingular
because of their coverage everywhere her and the hubby goes as truck
drivers.

AFIK, all GSM features showed be passed/allowed because GSM standards
agreements.

AL

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Steve Sobol - 20 Jul 2005 20:06 GMT

> I would have gone back to Verizon.

http://SteveSobol.com/goodbye_vzw/

After the abject lack of attention to repair issues in my neighborhood last
year, there is no way in hell I'll ever pay Verizon's premium again. Verizon
will just have to be happy with the fact that they supply POTS service to
me, and maybe Internet access when they launch FIOS in this area. No more
Verizon "you'll pay extra for the supposed best network in the country, but
you'd better hope nothing breaks" Wireless.

Besides, we wouldn't have switched if my mother-in-law didn't switch. We use
(well, used) a ton of PCS-PCS minutes calling her, and not switching to
T-Mobile would have cost us a lot of money, even though my phone was still
in contract and we will be paying $150 to terminate. (Wife's phone has been
out of contract for a year or two.)

And we were paying Sprint $100/month on our two non-shared plans totalling
1000 minutes, whereas we're paying $70 to T-Mobile for a 1000-minute share
plan with free nights, weekends and mobile-to-mobile calling (and we get
free roaming on top of that).

> features worked fine for me on Verizon.

Well, they may have finally fixed things. I don't believe Verizon was the
problem, to be honest... that was the only place on the whole trip where I
was roaming on a CDMA digital network and things were screwed up. Call
quality sucked too. I blame Alltel for that.

> AFIK, all GSM features showed be passed/allowed because GSM standards
> agreements.

Yeah, that's the thing... the interoperability issues aren't dealt with in
the CDMA protocol specs.

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Ben Skversky - 31 Jul 2005 20:27 GMT

I have the same plan with T-Mobile. Recently switched from Verizon.

>> I would have gone back to Verizon.
>
[quoted text clipped - 30 lines]
> Yeah, that's the thing... the interoperability issues aren't dealt with in
> the CDMA protocol specs.

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Steve Sobol - 31 Jul 2005 21:50 GMT

> I have the same plan with T-Mobile. Recently switched from Verizon.

One correction.

>>And we were paying Sprint $100/month on our two non-shared plans totalling
>>1000 minutes, whereas we're paying $70 to T-Mobile for a 1000-minute share
>>plan with free nights, weekends and mobile-to-mobile calling (and we get
>>free roaming on top of that).

The Sprint $100 included taxes and fees, the T-Mobile $70 didn't, add
probably $10-12 - but we'll still save money with T-Mobile.

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Joseph - 20 Jul 2005 14:39 GMT

>I just ported my wife's phone number, and my phone number, from Sprint to
>T-Mobile. I was wondering how many (if any) calling features like voicemail
>notification, caller ID, call forwarding, etc., are available when I roam
>off T-Mobile's network onto the network of another US GSM carrier.

*All* features are supported.

- -

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CJL - 21 Jul 2005 05:11 GMT

>>I just ported my wife's phone number, and my phone number, from Sprint to
>>T-Mobile. I was wondering how many (if any) calling features like voicemail
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> - -
>

The only problem I have ever encountered while I was roaming off Immix
Wireless(a small partner that Tmo has an agreement with) was that I
could not access T-Zones. I am located in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
However every other feature worked fine, also while I was roaming off
Immix I had a Full signal strength within a 15 mile radius. I sometimes
don't even get a Full signal strength while on Tmo itself! I live in a
very rural area and here at my home I never get Full signal the most I
get is up to 4 bars out of 6 95% of the time and depending on where I am
in and around my house rarely 5 bars out of 6. Actually according to
the map and the sreet locater I really shouldn't have any service at all!

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Cyrus Afzali - 21 Jul 2005 12:10 GMT

>
>The only problem I have ever encountered while I was roaming off Immix
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>in and around my house rarely 5 bars out of 6. Actually according to
>the map and the sreet locater I really shouldn't have any service at all!

That's actually pretty common. Voice roaming and the ability to data
roam are two different things. Often, the agreements only cover voice.
For example, Unicell and TM have a roaming agreement that covers
Vermont, but you can't use GPRS there.

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