Alltel EVDO Roaming?

[R11290]

Hi,

I recently took a week long camping trip to various parts of TN. For the first part of the week I was in Townsend, TN very near to Smoky Mountains National Park. At the campgrounds I had very spotty "1X" service of about zero or one bar, but that is to be expected.

The second half of the week I was in and near Memphis, TN and here I also only had "1X" service.

My main question is why does my EVDO capable Wafer roam only with "1X" data capabilities throughout TN even in areas where Sprint EVDO is present such as Memphis, Nashville, and Gatlinburg?

I was under the impression that Alltel was to roam on Sprint but I believe I may have been roaming on Verizon the whole way. I never got EVDO service until I reached Arkansas where Alltel EVDO was present.

Thanks for any responses.

[UFO]

The answer to your question is yes, Alltel and Sprint do have an EVDO roaming agreement. But the case with both providers, is that they only modify their PRL so that customers on smartphones, PDA's, and Wireless PC Cards are able to EVDO roam between networks. For the person that uses a regular phone to tether, the roaming agreements don't really help in that aspect at this time and the roaming on the Wafer is now limited to 1x.

[R11290]

Wow, thanks for the fast reply.

I figured it was some detail like that but I wasn't sure.

[strunke]

You could always load a smartphone PRL onto your handset and it works great, hehe.

I have prl 40023 in the NAM 2 of my KRZR if I ever need it. But have prl 30008 in the nam 1, don't use it much anyways, just did it for fun so I could make my phone go onto sprint's evdo....

[R11290]

I have another question regarding roaming now that I understand the EVDO roaming situation.

-- Does Alltel automatically search for Sprint over Verizon or vice versa once out of an Alltel market?
I was just wondering because I will be going to Houston this weekend and was curious which carrier I'll likely be roaming on just for the sake of wondering.

--Is there any easy way on a Samsung phone to choose which provider to roam on? (On my old LG I could select PCS or Cellular band, but because both Verizon and Sprint are PCS here it would just randomly pick one or the other I think)

Sorry for the trivial questions..

but thanks for the answers to them

[strunke]

Originally Posted by R11290

I have another question regarding roaming now that I understand the EVDO roaming situation.

-- Does Alltel automatically search for Sprint over Verizon or vice versa once out of an Alltel market?
I was just wondering because I will be going to Houston this weekend and was curious which carrier I'll likely be roaming on just for the sake of wondering.

--Is there any easy way on a Samsung phone to choose which provider to roam on? (On my old LG I could select PCS or Cellular band, but because both Verizon and Sprint are PCS here it would just randomly pick one or the other I think)

Sorry for the trivial questions..

but thanks for the answers to them

In most cases it will prefer Sprint over Verizon and use Verizon where Sprint might have holes.

I believe Samsungs have settings to allow a change in what band you are using. If not it may be in the programming menu. I think it is "Menu + 0 then six zero's" to get into samsungs programming menu???????

[stsivakkani]

Hi,

I have a general question on EVDO roaming too.

If my device is originally camped on 1xRTT and I am browsing web while driving and now when the device sees EVDO, does it automatically switch to EVDO for any ongoing data connection?

Thanks,
Salai.