Re: Las Vegas area

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <11hegi5tlrdpe3b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> on Thu, 01 Sep 2005 14:02:40 -0400,
Isaiah Beard <sacredpoet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>This reason this matters is that some older phones on each network will
>tend to favor their "native" network over the other.

Actually true of all standard GSM phones that don't have support ENS and an
ENS (64K) SIM.

>Right now, a
>Cingular customer, regardless of what "color" of phone they have, can
>use either network without incurring any roaming charges. But, the
>older phones don't know or care about trivial things like mergers and
>network integrations. So, if the Blue network has a horrible signal in
>an area, but the Orange network gives excellent coverage, an older Blue
>phone would be at a disadvantage because it will try to hold onto the
>Blue signal as long as it can find one, no matter how weak, even if a
>perfectly useable Orange signal exists. The reverse is also true.

Good point, albeit usually not a big issue.

>This is less of an issue, however, starting with phones that have newer
>64k SIM cards. These newer SIM cards are "aware" of the merger, and
>know that technically, Orange and Blue are supposed to be treated as one
>and the same.

Actually not -- they work just like standard GSM phones except that they can
be *manually* "Homed" OTA (over the air, by Cingular Tech Support) to either
the "blue" or the "orange" network. They do *not* select the best network
automatically.

>As you're from Verizon, think of it this way: it's equivalent to the
>older phones having an old PRL that can't be upgraded without replacing
>the SIM card inside of the phone. Newer phones (Or old phones with
>upgraded SIM cards) have the most recent PRL.

Similar, but ENS isn't as good, since it's a manual switch.

--
Best regards, HELP FOR CINGULAR GSM & SONY ERICSSON PHONES:
John Navas <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/#Cingular>
.

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