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Cellular Phone Forum / Providers / Verizon / October 2004Any truth to dated PRLs?
I live in Michigan and have 3 phones with Verizon Wireless: One Local Digitalchoice phone, one America's Choice phone, and one prepaid FreeUP phone. 3 different coverage maps - could it get any more complicated? Anyways, when I renewed my contract on the LDC phone here almost 2 years ago, the coverage map included only the Verizon's native network - there were no extended network partners. Therefore, I was forced to get one America's Choice phone just for the coverage in less populated areas of Michigan. This April, Verizon unveiled a new campaign here, "take your minutes more places" or the like, and the LDC map now included all the same free roaming partners as the AC plan - a godsend since VZW has pretty limited coverage here for an urban state. Anyways, shortly thereafter, I went up North, used my LDC phone on extended network - and the bill came back roaming. Called and had that taken off (yes I updated the PRL). Knowing what I know now, that was probably a new prl billing glitch - we'll get to that later. So last month I went to a city, Kalamazoo, where I know Verizon had extended net. coverage on my AC phone. I got there - and was in roaming. Now, I'm not stupid, but I had planned to use the phone and couldn't help but do so. I called CS perplexed, and here's what they told me: My plan retains the coverage map that was in effect when I signed up for the plan. Therefore, my plan doesnt include any of the new EN areas that the new LDC plans do. The EN indicator that I saw once must have been a system glitch - they could have accidentally given all LDC customers, not just the new ones, the revised PRL. Is there any truth to this, or should my LDC phone get the new coverage too? Btw: i know i was not in a small roaming pocket, the whole area was roaming when the new map shows EN. > Is there any truth to this, or should my LDC phone get the new > coverage too? Btw: i know i was not in a small roaming pocket, the > whole area was roaming when the new map shows EN. You should update your PRL if you know you're going to be somewhere Verizon doesn't have native coverage. But all the PRL should affect is whether you phone displays the roaming indicators or not... extended is extended, and if you are in an area that is supposed to be extended network you are not supposed to be billed on certain calling plans, regardless of what your phone says.  SignatureJustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED) Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids. >> Is there any truth to this, or should my LDC phone get the new >> coverage too? Btw: i know i was not in a small roaming pocket, the [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > be extended network you are not supposed to be billed on certain > calling plans, regardless of what your phone says. I think they may have gone to a single PRL for everything everywhere. When I had my LDC plan the phone used to show roaming, etc. in places within my LDC area. I never got charged. I'm not sure, but I don't think the PRL blocks anything. It basically has the phone select the preferred signal of the ones present and says which roaming (or not) indicator to display. -Quick > I think they may have gone to a single PRL for everything everywhere. > When I had my LDC plan the phone used to show roaming, etc. in [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > -Quick I would think having a single PRL for all plans would be the way to go for a company....one would be able to conatct the same towers no matter where you are or plan one may be on, and the plan would determine how one pays for the contacts. At least that's they way i feel it should be done if verizon has not done it that way. >> I think they may have gone to a single PRL for everything everywhere. >> When I had my LDC plan the phone used to show roaming, etc. in [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] >one pays for the contacts. At least that's they way i feel it should be >done if verizon has not done it that way. I would expect all PRLs to have the same system selection configuration, and differ only in the roaming indicator, to reflect your rate plan. Recall that the roam indicator on your phone does not determine how you will be billed; that is decided by the billing system. But discrepancies, especially calls which show as "free" on the phone but are billed by the system, are to be avoided, since that leads to upset customers and calls to customer service. Charles, You stated that the Roam indicator does not determine how you will be billed, but Verizon's web site says that it is precisely how you can tell. Quoted from http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=planFirst&action=change PlanDetail&sortOption=priceSort&catId=323 at the bottom of the page. ******* Roaming Indicator Information: Your phone's roaming indicator tells you when rates apply and when features and services may be available. Roaming Indicators vary by phone model. When your indicator is off or the banner displays "Verizon Wireless": home airtime rates and National IN Calling apply. When the digital indicator is also on, digital features and services are available. When the indicator is off and the banner displays "Extended Network": home airtime rates and National IN Calling applies. Other features and services may not be available. When the indicator is flashing and the banner displays "Extended Network": home airtime rates apply. National IN Calling does not apply other features and services may not be available. When the indicator is solid or the banner displays "Roaming": roaming rates apply. National IN Calling does not apply and other features and services may not be available. ******* Unless I am reading this information incorrectly, the roaming indicator tells when you get billed. This indicator makes more sense than having the billing system looking at each individual plan and tying it to a coverage map in force at the time the contract was signed. Gregg Hill >>> I think they may have gone to a single PRL for everything everywhere. >>> When I had my LDC plan the phone used to show roaming, etc. in [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > are billed by the system, are to be avoided, since that leads to upset > customers and calls to customer service. > Charles, > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Quoted from http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=planFirst&action=change PlanDetail&sortOption=priceSort&catId=323 > at the bottom of the page. > ******* [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > > Gregg Hill Nope. Once connected there is no information passed about roaming or not. The phone does not dictate to the billing system. If it did you would see a large black market for hacked phones that never roamed. Another problem with having it determined from the phone is that you would have to maintain plan specific PRLs -- there have been a *lot* of plans/promotions over the last few years. Multiply by regional differences. It's all "centralized" in the billing system. Find ESN. ESN record points to plan it is activated on. Get tower from call record. Find tower record to get tower code. Use per minute charge corresponding to tower code specified in plan record. dialed number from call record. yada yada... etc. (something like this) A particular phone can be activated on a different plan or account between calls without changing anything in the phone. One plan you may be roaming and the other plan not. there's more. -Quick > Charles, > > You stated that the Roam indicator does not determine how you will be > billed, but Verizon's web site says that it is precisely how you can tell. > > Quoted from http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=planFirst&action=change PlanDetail&sortOption=priceSort&catId=323 > at the bottom of the page. > ******* [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > billing system looking at each individual plan and tying it to a coverage > map in force at the time the contract was signed. However, if your phone contains an outdated PRL, then it may not *accurately* tell you which rates apply. You may be roaming--and yet the phone may not display the roaming indicator. SignatureD.J., N8DO; FMCA 147762 dj[underscore]osborn at yahoo dot com >Charles, > [quoted text clipped - 30 lines] >billing system looking at each individual plan and tying it to a coverage >map in force at the time the contract was signed. 1) When you do *228, the system looks at your rate plan to decide which version of the PRL is sent to your phone. 2) The phone looks at the PRL to decide what roaming indicator to show. 3) The billing system looks at your rate plan to figure out how to bill the various calls you made during a billing cycle. Your PRL and your rate plan are supposed to be consistent, and thus the comments on the Web site. But if your PRL is out of date, or there is an error in the PRL, then the phone, using incorrect info in the PRL, will display incorrect information about the roaming status of a call. The system has no idea what the roaming indicator on you phone is saying; billing will be done as per your rate plan. Inconsistencies lead to unhappy customers and angry calls to customer service; this is why they want you to do *228 regularly, and are migrating to automatic "push" of the PRL to phones. > [...] this is why they want you to do *228 regularly, and are > migrating to automatic "push" of the PRL to phones. I think that currently it may be more than a "want". I sort of remember reading somewhere (contract?) that you are sort of required to do a *228 at least once a month? It also specifies that the roaming indicator may not reflect your actual billing. This does seem to be un-enforced at present. Every first time case of "but the phone said I wasn't roaming" that I have heard of has been forgiven and the charges credited. -Quick >> [...] this is why they want you to do *228 regularly, and are >> migrating to automatic "push" of the PRL to phones. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >case of "but the phone said I wasn't roaming" that I have heard >of has been forgiven and the charges credited. Consider yourself informed of a counter-example. When I took the train across Canada in May, I was charged roaming for a call in northern Ontario that the phone said was extended network. VZW customer service said "too bad, you'll have to pay, our computers never make mistakes". I had updated my roaming list the previous week after I changed from the America's Choice plan to the North America's Choice plan. Why doesn't the phone get its roaming status from the tower? The system knows, or could know, whether the call should be treated as roaming. At the worst, some calls would indicate that they're roaming when in fact they're not, which is (in my opinion, others may differ) much better than showing a call as free when it actually costs more than $1 per minute. == Jack Hamilton jfh@acm.org == In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted comfort and security. And in the end, they lost it all - freedom, comfort and security. Edward Gibbon >Why doesn't the phone get its roaming status from the tower? The system >knows, or could know, whether the call should be treated as roaming. At >the worst, some calls would indicate that they're roaming when in fact >they're not, which is (in my opinion, others may differ) much better >than showing a call as free when it actually costs more than $1 per >minute. Because "the tower" doesn't know how the call is to be billed. Calls just generate call records (who called whom at what time for how long), and the billing system processes the call records "after the fact". This is particularly true if you are roaming on a non-VZW system. All "the tower" has to do is validate that you are a valid caller and that it knows where to send the bill. >>Why doesn't the phone get its roaming status from the tower? The system >>knows, or could know, whether the call should be treated as roaming. At [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >tower" has to do is validate that you are a valid caller and that it knows >where to send the bill. That may be how it works, but there's no reason why it *has* to work that way. All the information is available to the system. It would increase network traffic somewhat, true, but only when a phone changes towers. == Jack Hamilton jfh@acm.org == In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted comfort and security. And in the end, they lost it all - freedom, comfort and security. Edward Gibbon >>> Why doesn't the phone get its roaming status from the tower? The >>> system knows, or could know, whether the call should be treated as [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > increase network traffic somewhat, true, but only when a phone changes > towers. Yes, and no. To constantly get roaming status from the tower there would need to be a "data channel" setup between the phone and the tower. Right now (I think... and greatly simplified) the phone simply detects the paging channel and displays the corresponding indicator. To actually verify, in real time, the roaming status and relay it to the phone the network would have to constantly access the central database and relay this information to the phone, for each and every phone that was turned on... I don't think the network has the capacity. I don't think the database could handle that amount of access. There might not be any/much bandwidth left for phone calls. -Quick >>>> Why doesn't the phone get its roaming status from the tower? The >>>> system knows, or could know, whether the call should be treated as [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] >think the database could handle that amount of access. There might >not be any/much bandwidth left for phone calls. Why "constantly"? Why not when changing towers, and then once every 24 hours or so? Data could be cached in the towers - not every lookup would have to go back to the central database. == Jack Hamilton jfh@acm.org == In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted comfort and security. And in the end, they lost it all - freedom, comfort and security. Edward Gibbon >>> That may be how it works, but there's no reason why it *has* to work >>> that way. All the information is available to the system. It would [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > Data could be cached in the towers - not every lookup would have to go > back to the central database. Won't scale. Too much overhead with pushing changes. ~33 million customer's account data cached at each tower? If not, then you will have inconsistencies throughout the network and/or have to do a lookup anyway. How often do you invalidate the cache so as to pick up plan changes? You only get ESN from the phone at the air interface. What happens when I sell my phone to someone else? Billing is not something that you can have "windows" in. -Quick Here's an example. Say that "Futt Buck Cellular Inc", in Futt County, was a pay Roam system under VZW AC plans until 8 months ago, when they became "Extended Network" & the PRL was updated to show this. Say also, for example, you have a share plan w/ two phones, & you have updated your PRL w/*228, but your wife hasn't in over a year. If you both travel to Futt Buck Cellular's county, "Your" phone would display "Extended Network", while the wife's would show roam on the same cell site. This wouldn't matter for billing, since VZW's billing system over 8 months ago has coded calls on Futt Buck Cellular as "free" mins, & both lines would be billed the same. Older PRL's may not be as accurate in the display of the systems/icons, but it has no effect on billing. > Charles, > > You stated that the Roam indicator does not determine how you will be > billed, but Verizon's web site says that it is precisely how you can tell. The Roam indicator is independent of the billing system. Usually it's a very good indicator of when you'll be charged roaming, but when it's on is dictated by the PRL which is simply a list of Verizon and foreign systems programmed into the phone. VZW has made mistakes with PRLs before. That having been said, it's a reliable indicator most of the time. SignatureJustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED) Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids. >The Roam indicator is independent of the billing system. Usually it's a very >good indicator of when you'll be charged roaming, but when it's on is dictated >by the PRL which is simply a list of Verizon and foreign systems programmed >into the phone. VZW has made mistakes with PRLs before. > >That having been said, it's a reliable indicator most of the time. My two cents -- my experience has been that the system has been accurate for me. I consistently get into "Roam Indicator" when I am in the Dominican Republic; at that point higher rates apply -- and are also posted on the website. For the US I have a national plan -- have only seen Verizon Wireless or Extended Network indicators for the places I travel in the States. -- Steven L. Johnson - Aiken, South Carolina (USA) Reply to: stevejohnsonSPAMJUNK@SPAMJUNKengineer.com removing the capital letters -- KP, Unfortunately, the CS agent is correct. If you are using an old LDC plan, you will have exactly the same coverage area included as before. You can change to the new LDC plan and get the new coverage. It's all done with their "code". When you first got your old LDC plan, the code was, say, ABC1, and that was configured into the computer with exactly what features were included, V-M, LD, Coverage, etc. New plans with different coverage would have a different code, like ABC5. All ABC1's have the same coverage as before. Either code will have the same Local PRL. At least yours is close to local. In the west there is only 1 Local PRL for 12 states. 11 of those could be roaming for some customers. You can upgrade to the new LDC plan, although if you want the IN & N&W features you'll need to sign up for another year. Bill Radio Click for Western U.S. Wireless Reviews at: http://www.mountainwireless.com > My plan retains the coverage map that was in effect when I signed up > for the plan. Therefore, my plan doesnt include any of the new EN > areas that the new LDC plans do. |
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