What is happening today, 10 years ago if i was out of my area, why i could switch my cell phone to scan A, or Scan B, or A-B and if there was a signal around i could use the thing, knowing it would show on my bill.
Today i can look up at a tower and my phone could give a shit less, The tragidy is so could my provider.
I ask for a dual mode phone and i am looked at like i am nuts (well mabe i am a little).
Is everyone of you out there satisfied with your service?
I am in a rural area, but you urbanites recreate in this area too.
Or is the general conn. Its good enough (God knows its expensive enough).
Your thoughts, As i am thinking about talking to my Congressman.
Umm, you don’t mention if you are in the US, but I assume you are.
You are talking about analog roaming, which pretty much doesn’t exist anymore. Most phones nowadays will use any available frequency and most plans are nationwide with no roaming areas within the US. My phone is quad-band, and will automatically pick up any of four GSM/GPRS frequencies available, no need to switch anything. I think most phones today are tri-mode.
a) I don’t think talking to your congressman will help.
b) There are now competing cellular technologies that use different types of communication. T-Mobile/Cingular are GSM/GPRS with three different frequencies (right?) in use in the US. Verizon/Sprint/Metro are CDMA with also three different frequencies in use in the US. I do not know of any common phones that do both GSM and CDMA (barring 3G) and you would most likely need two accounts with two providers (or roam on one and pay $$$). You could be standing right under a GSM tower with a CDMA phone and get nothing. They just don’t know how to talk to each other.
c) Your phone will in most circumstances connect to any tower it is capable of talking to, unless you disable that feature. If this somehow happens to make you roam, a roaming indicator should come on somewhere on the phone. With default settings, if there is no signal either your phone is broken or there is actually no signal available. When multiple signals are available your phone should and most likely will pick the one that does not make you roam and is the strongest.
Do many phone plans nowadays even charge for roaming? I started using cell phones about 2 years ago and I’ve never had to pay for roaming.
Related question: is it even possible to roam on a GSM network when using a CDMA phone (or vice versa)?
No, they are pretty different technologies. I guess in theory you could build a device that had two phones inside it – a GSM one and a CDMA one. But as groman points out, with such a device you would still need to sign-up for service from two carriers and get two different phone numbers with two different bills, etc.
I suspect groman is correct and the tower that Gbro sees is for the other technology.
"Quote There are now competing cellular technologies that use different types of communication. T-Mobile/Cingular are GSM/GPRS with three different frequencies (right?) in use in the US. Verizon/Sprint/Metro are CDMA with also three different frequencies in use in the US. I do not know of any common phones that do both GSM and CDMA (barring 3G) and you would most likely need two accounts with two providers (or roam on one and pay $$$). You could be standing right under a GSM tower with a CDMA phone and get nothing. They just don’t know how to talk to each other."Quote
That is the problem we are having in our area. Northern Minnesota. The 2 main are Dobson Cellular (Cellular 1) and Verison and all their underlings. But 1 mile from home is the “Governmental boundary Line” that has been a pain in the ass to us ever since the 1st cell phone. but we could use the other systems and pay.
Now with the new locater features, how are 911 calls going to be triangulated in an area that has one tower that has GSM and the others are CDMA.
I have heard of Tri-mode phones and bi-mode, just what dose that actually mean now? or what good are they on the edge of these two systems.
We do have some Analog systems still running here but they are on their way out in the next year or less.
Two years ago when i was hunting in Colorado, i brought 2 phones along.
Trac Phone (suppose to work anywhere)
My Dobson cell 1.
When i powered up my cell 1 phone i got no signal after a reasonable wait. and the trac phone did get a weak signal. about 15 min later my cell 1 phone went off as i had messages. This phone just took a lot longer to run its course in this new area, and every day after that it took from 10-15 min. to get signal.
Now i learn Trac phone is a GSM system and uses these same towers but that system did acquire signal much faster.
Moral to this story is; If you are in a new far away spot, Don’t give up on getting signal to soon. (to bad the phone doesn’t at least indicate its trying instead of the NO- Signal message.