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Sprint's Roaming Contract with Verizon...

Sorry, but no. I know plenty of places in Philly and the surrounding area i won't roam on verizon where my verizon friends have a great signal, and i have squat. Yet there are certain places i will always roam on verizon. It isn't universal. My sister's house will drain my phone in an hour searching fo a signal while verizon is strong as can be. Then ask everyone with an airave at home where the verizon signal is strong.
Ilya said:
You will if you set your roaming options to automatic. If you set your phone options to Sprint Only, then of course you won't roam.
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lgmayka said:
Here is my latest interpretation:
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The net effect is that a Sprint phone may appear to have roaming service, but will immediately switch to no-service as soon as the customer attempts to make a call.
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This thread has been very helpful . I was going nuts thinking my Droid had problems.

This is happening to me, began last week, in the Chicago neighborhood I've lived in for 5 years with Sprint without problems

if I go a mile north, south, east, west NO PROBLEM with service.

Either Sprint must fix this problem or I need to move. I don't have wired internet so airrave is not an option for me.

One other thing, on top of my building I can get 4g but not make calls! I've confirmed this with a friends phone as well.
 
forddna said:
I get that, too, with data services. I get warnings that I have no data connection. I don't make a lot of voice calls..
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I finally got a chance to test making a phone call while roaming. I lost signal inside a store IN TAMPA. I got the roaming popup warning and told it to go ahead and roam so I could make a call. But I got the message from Verizon that someone mentioned earlier and was not able to make a phone call.

Good job, Sprint. What's the point of being able to roam if you can't make calls, can't send texts, and can't use the internet/data???

I have asked my sister to add me to her AT&T family plan, and I'll be able to do it for $40/mo. Woot!
 
Ain't the internet grand? At least you have some nice slate options on AT&T since you don't use the keyboard.
forddna said:
Umm..thank you? Not sure why you always have a snide remark for me, but I'm proud to affect some stranger over the interwebz so much. lol
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So I guess I made a mistake getting an Evo 3D for me and an Evo 4G for my wife?

I really don't know what to do anymore, I'll try sprint for 30 days, if it's no good I'll drop it. But I just want to leave att, and Tmobile does not offer real 4G even though they have nice phones. So that leaves Verizon... What's the best android phone on Verizon?
 
I have a demo sidekick 4g on T-mob alongside my Epic on Sprint, and I get better speeds on the Sidekick, pushing 8mbs compared to my 3-6 on Sprint. The whole 4g not 4g stuff is just crap. I don't care about theoretical speeds. I care about my actual ones regardless of the terminology (LTE, WIMAX, HSPA+). If I'm consistently getting over 5mbs, then I'm a happy camper.
 
dbpaddler said:
I have a demo sidekick 4g on T-mob alongside my Epic on Sprint, and I get better speeds on the Sidekick, pushing 8mbs compared to my 3-6 on Sprint. The whole 4g not 4g stuff is just crap. I don't care about theoretical speeds. I care about my actual ones regardless of the terminology (LTE, WIMAX, HSPA+). If I'm consistently getting over 5mbs, then I'm a happy camper.
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You know what? you're right. I think I'll check out the MyTouch 4G...
 
I hope you mean the 4g slide, because there are better slates than the MyTouch 4g. t The 4g Slide isn't my idea of a premium slider, but it's the best slider they have. I really don't get why there are only two 4+ inch 5 row sliders on the market. Makes no sense to me.
 
forddna said:
I finally got a chance to test making a phone call while roaming. I lost signal inside a store IN TAMPA. I got the roaming popup warning and told it to go ahead and roam so I could make a call. But I got the message from Verizon that someone mentioned earlier and was not able to make a phone call.

Good job, Sprint. What's the point of being able to roam if you can't make calls, can't send texts, and can't use the internet/data???

I have asked my sister to add me to her AT&T family plan, and I'll be able to do it for $40/mo. Woot!
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Sounds like you have your roaming guards enabled.

Go to your settings > Wireless & Networks > Mobile Networks.

Make sure Data Roaming is checked. Un-check Data Roaming Guard, Un-check Call Guard (may be under call settings on some phones), and make sure roaming is set automatic.
 
Ok. Did all that. What's the difference between it being set to always roam in settings, and me telling it to roam when I lose data/voice service?
 
forddna said:
Ok. Did all that. What's the difference between it being set to always roam in settings, and me telling it to roam when I lose data/voice service?
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I dont think there is an always (i.e. force) roam setting, at least not natively. There is Auto roam which will allow the phone to roam if it loses home network (Sprint) coverage.. it will automatically switch to another network and roam off of it. When it picks up home network coverage, it will automatically switch back. There is also a selection to protect against roaming (i.e. roaming guard, or something like that), this feature is for those who do not have roaming agreements and will incur overages for roaming. We dont have to worry about that. I always keep my phone on Auto, since we have roaming included. At least thats my take; and its been working fine, without any additional charges/overages, for years. Hope that helps.
 
You can't force roaming. If you could, then you'd set off a red flag when your percentage of roam to home went over a certain percentage. Then Sprint would cancel your account and tell you to go elsewhere. Well maybe not immediately, but if you kept it up they would. The best you can do is set roaming to automatic, turn the roaming settings for voice and data on and the guards for them off. It should be about as seamless as it can get.
 
There is an app called Roam Control that will force roaming on some phones but as mentioned beware you could throw up red flags. Only use it in an area where you are really on the fringe of grabbing a Sprint tower. Then turn it off. Sprint has pretty good reception in most areas anyways.

I actually ended up for the first time today since I've had Sprint in a small area where my phone automatically went into roaming. I tried calling my friend with at&t sitting right next to me and got the message mentioned earlier about verizon wireless. I dialed his number without using the area code. Then i tried again using the area code and the call went through just fine.
 
Interesting thread here. I set my phone to Sprint-only, no roaming and I haven't hit any areas yet in NJ, Philly-metro, NY, CT, MD, VA, NC, FL, and MA that I didn't get Sprint service. I did not get much Sprint service in northern ME, but I checked for roaming signal and didn't get any VZW there either. I think some smaller, regional provider showed up but I never made a call. Data there wasn't an option.

My lesson on roaming - I can generally stay with Sprint only. If I can't get a call through, it's easy enough to toggle roaming on and search for another signal. If I'm that far from Sprint service, I don't expect much, if any, access to data.

As to the post of why Wimax matters? Well, there isn't a day when I'm not using my phone online to respond to biz or personal email, check biz accounts, or other items I need to do. If a call comes in, I don't have to stop what I'm doing. If I'm asked to look something up, I do it right then. That matters because people really get jazzed when you tell them they don't have to wait while you retrieve the information. It also matters in major metros where Sprint has strong 4G signal and coverage.

The way I get in and around NYC, Philly, and Boston is much better now with 4G. I can talk to people as I'm getting to them.

Of course, it's tough on battery (as all multi-tasking is). That's what extended batteries and portable rechargers are for.

I've had VZW friends brag about speed. Yes, they were faster. But it wasn't practically that much better. Just because you can DL/stream faster doesn't mean you can watch the content any faster. My speedy VZW friends are always conscious of data too. I never win the speed test, but I always win when it comes to continuous use. I never see VZW friends walking around using Google Maps/Layars/etc while talking to others while driving/walking to our meeting point. I do it all the time thanks to Wimax.

As for TMo - they're very good in their strong coverage areas. If I lived in downtown Philly, I'd probably use them. TMo doesn't hold up well for traveling though. And those speeds they show don't hold up across their entire coverage footprint. They're good, just not great. If they were, people would be signing up for them in droves and they wouldn't be an AT&T acquisition. And IF TMo gets swallowed up by AT&T, expect the speeds to drop significantly. Those iPhoners would love to be able to have another pool of towers to choke.
 
Rigmaster said:
My lesson on roaming - I can generally stay with Sprint only. If I can't get a call through, it's easy enough to toggle roaming on and search for another signal. If I'm that far from Sprint service, I don't expect much, if any, access to data.
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Even though it's easy enough to switch, why not just leave roaming on automatic?
 
With t-mo, as the merger continues and they combine towers, coverage should improve for both. And doesn't tmo use different freq's for their hspa+? So it shouldn't be a big throttling either with the influx of apple crowd.

For work, their wifi calling is a big plus. We spend a lot of time in hospitals that can turn into big dead zones. After a few hours of signal searching or minimal signal our batteries are pretty much dead. So hop on the hospital wifi and talk, text and surf with no signal issues, battery drain or separate gv numbers and what not.
 
EVOlution3 said:
Do you mean the Sprint only/Automatic setting or the guards?
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I did what was posted above. I just wasn't specific in my post. The roaming I am telling it to do in settings is actually data. "Always connect to data when roaming."

I still don't see how (and am asking how) this is different than when the data warning screen pops up, and I tell it to roam (which never actually connects to anything).
 
well, if you have your settings how I think you do, and how I have mine, this will just eliminate a prompt asking you before it roams. One less step because you wont have to "approve" the roam.. it will automatically switch back and forth if it needs to roam.
 
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