Forcing roam to verizon in Saginaw, MI

[jdeleeuw]

I have Alltel and live in Saginaw MI. At home i get fringe coverage. My question is if I force my phone to verizon's network(when I am at home) will I be charged roaming? I have set it up in the NAM2 settings but I don't want to switch over if I am going to be charged.

[cellular_freak]

It all depends on what plan you have. If you have a National plan, more than likely you will not be charged roaming. Most national companies don't charge roaming any more. Just check your plan and see what kind of plan it is. If it says national in the name, more than likely you will not be charged roaming.

[KyleAndMelissa22]

Originally Posted by jdeleeuw

I have Alltel and live in Saginaw MI. At home i get fringe coverage. My question is if I force my phone to verizon's network(when I am at home) will I be charged roaming? I have set it up in the NAM2 settings but I don't want to switch over if I am going to be charged.

As long as Verizon's (SID 21) the Saginaw area isn't neg'd for the area,
then you can roam for free on it with a national plan.

SID 21 for the Great Lakes area, covers Saginaw, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinatti, Toledo & surrounding areas,
and it isn't neg'd (meaning you can't use it as it's disabled for your area)

Also, you can roam for free on Sprint as well (SID 4126, Detroit) so try them too

[jdeleeuw]

I am on a national plan. I checked the sid 21 and it isn't neg'd. I will also look into Sprint's sid. I assume that Sprint's 4126 sid for Detroit is for north of Detroit also?

[cellular_freak]

You'll probably end up getting better service on Verizon's network than on Sprint's network. I know that Alltel is known to have one of the best network's around Saginaw, so if you're not getting that good of a signal, than I would try Verizon, because I go through Saginaw, Hemlock and Merrill all the time and I have excellent signal with Verizon.
And I'm not quite sure if this matters but north of Flint, everything is iPCS, an affiliate of Sprint, not Sprint itself. So I don't know if there is a different SID for iPCS or not. I'd check in to that though. I know iPCS sucks at their coverage too.

[KyleAndMelissa22]

Originally Posted by jdeleeuw

I assume that Sprint's 4126 sid for Detroit is for north of Detroit also?

Yes. Sprint SIDs cover larger areas, as there aren't as many of them.
For example; Sprint SID 4376 covers the entire states of North & South Carolina.

4126 covers plenty of Michigan.

Here are some other SIDs for nearby areas:

4396 for Cleveland (Sprint)
4384 for Chicago (Sprint)
4153 for Milwaukee (Sprint)
4155 for Minneapolis/St Paul (Sprint)

20 for Chicago (Verizon)
26 for Minneapolis/St Paul (Verizon)