Is Activation Oustside Home Area Possible?

[satownag02]

I initially activated my phone in TX and I moved to NY for school. I kept my old number so that my folks can call my cell as a 'local call.'
I needed to switch phones and I was wondering if I could activate it from NY without having to get a new NY number, etc...?

If anyone knows if I can or how I could do it please let me know. Cingular made it seem like I could only activate from home unless I switched my number.

Thanks in advance!

[jmccrane]

Where in NY are you? If your phone was TDMA back home and you are in the NYC area now, you cannot activate it there because Cingular's system in NYC is GSM-only (you roam on AT&T). If your phone was GSM, or if you are upstate somewhere, then disregard this and you should be able to call Customer Service and do it. CS is centralized anyway. No matter where you call them from you always get the same people. I don't see why it should matter as long as you are in a Cingular area now.

[satownag02]

Well this is where it gets interesting - Yes, I have TDMA and I'm in Upstate NY. BUT, apparently TX and NY have "different billing systems" - at least that's what they told me. I'm still not sure why that would make a difference but that seems to be the reason they said I would have to activate on my "home towers."

Sounds pretty weird. I should just try activating over the phone, I guess.

[roamer1]

My guess is that they won't let you activate outside your home area because the IRDBs for TX and upstate NY are very different and they have no way to push you the correct one if you aren't in your home area. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

-SC

[satownag02]

I still don't understand what the big deal is about it activating from home. Doesn't really seem like that should matter.

[jmccrane]

Originally posted by: satownag02 I still don't understand what the big deal is about it activating from home. Doesn't really seem like that should matter.

This is the downside to Cingular and Verizon, the 2 national carriers that still feel like a patchwork quilt on their networks due to separate billing systems, incompatible technologies, features that inexplicably don't work in some areas, different IRDBs (or PRLs on Verizon), etc. I don't blame you for being frustrated because I don't really have a good explanation here.

[parthery]

Only AT&T and Sprint will let you activate anywhere on their network. Cingular and Verizon limit activations to home market only.

You may have to ship your phone back to TX to get it activated.

[satownag02]

Originally posted by: parthery Only AT&T and Sprint will let you activate anywhere on their network. Cingular and Verizon limit activations to home market only. You may have to ship your phone back to TX to get it activated.

Do you think that I should have to pay for that? Plus, how would I be able to arrange it. I needed it to be activated before Thurs (Spring Break) but I guess it's not looking good. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

[jmccrane]

Well, your best hope is to overnight it to Texas today, have mom or dad activate it for you (pretending that they are you if the phone is in your name), and have them overnight it back. At that rate you could get it on Thursday, or Wednesday if you're lucky.

[bobolito]

Question: does the new phone register with a tower when you turn it on? If it does, what does the screen read? What model is the phone? If your phone registers with a tower (or reads Cingular on the screen) most likely you won't have any problems activating it. So, I think there's a good chance you can activate it no matter what they say.

Here's what you do. Call them and just tell them that you need to change the ESN in your account and don't mention anything about your being in another area. Give them the ESN in your new phone which should be located in a label under the battery. All they do is to enter the new phone's ESN in the system. On the TDMA system is not really a big deal whether your phone is in your home area or not because the system mandates what works and what doesn't. Even if you are in NYC it should not a problem because you can roam on AT&T there and AT&T welcomes Cingular TDMA users in NYC. They may not be able to send you the IRDB like roamer said, but most likely that won't be a problem. How many times I've traveled and had the wrong IRDB in my phone is countless and never experienced a problem. After you finish talking to them, you need to enter the SID, SOC and your mobile number into the new phone. If you don't know how to do this, they can help you over the phone with that or you can always ask here.

Wait for about 2 hours after you give them the new ESN. However, it may take longer because you are not in your home area. Keep using your old phone as normal in the meantime. When you discover that you cannot make or receive calls on your old phone anymore, check the new one to see if you can call somebody. Turn it off and back on if necessary and keep your old phone off. If your new phone does not work after that, then call them again and change the ESN back to the old one. Let us know how it goes.

[AnthroMatt]

Originally posted by: parthery Only AT&T and Sprint will let you activate anywhere on their network. Cingular and Verizon limit activations to home market only. You may have to ship your phone back to TX to get it activated.

I don't know about Cingular, but that is not true for Verizon. Verizon phones can be activated outside the home area...it just takes a little more work and programming than most CS reps are willing to do.

[roamer1]

VZW PRLs are uniform nationwide (for AC and NSR plans anyway; they do differ for local plans, but VZW can update virtually all phones' PRLs using a data cable and software tool.) The billing system issues are still problematic for VZW, but AIUI, they're consolidating all markets into two billing systems to improve service, and most or all markets in some regions, such as the Southeast, are already on one system. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

Cingular has far worse problems than just IRDBs to worry about. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

-SC

[satownag02]

Originally posted by: bobolito Question: does the new phone register with a tower when you turn it on? If it does, what does the screen read? What model is the phone? If your phone registers with a tower (or reads Cingular on the screen) most likely you won't have any problems activating it. So, I think there's a good chance you can activate it no matter what they say. Here's what you do. Call them and just tell them that you need to change the ESN in your account and don't mention anything about your being in another area. Give them the ESN in your new phone which should be located in a label under the battery. All they do is to enter the new phone's ESN in the system. On the TDMA system is not really a big deal whether your phone is in your home area or not because the system mandates what works and what doesn't. Even if you are in NYC it should not a problem because you can roam on AT&T there and AT&T welcomes Cingular TDMA users in NYC. They may not be able to send you the IRDB like roamer said, but most likely that won't be a problem. How many times I've traveled and had the wrong IRDB in my phone is countless and never experienced a problem. After you finish talking to them, you need to enter the SID, SOC and your mobile number into the new phone. If you don't know how to do this, they can help you over the phone with that or you can always ask here. Wait for about 2 hours after you give them the new ESN. However, it may take longer because you are not in your home area. Keep using your old phone as normal in the meantime. When you discover that you cannot make or receive calls on your old phone anymore, check the new one to see if you can call somebody. Turn it off and back on if necessary and keep your old phone off. If your new phone does not work after that, then call them again and change the ESN back to the old one. Let us know how it goes.

Thanks Bobolito!! I'm glad I hadn't mailed my phone home. So today I called Cingular and of course they couldn't access my account information here so I was transferred to Texas representative. They switched the ESN without asking any questions. Almost immediatly my old phone stopped working, but the new one (V60t) didn't either. The new phone came from TX and basically the same area that I was from so I didn't bother to change the SID and SOC. Since the new phone didn't work, I went into my old phone and found that my SID and SOC were different. So then I went into the program mode of the new phone, updated the MIN, and made the SID and SOC match my old phone. Finally, I reset, and viola. Worked perfectly, in about 30 minutes time.

One weird thing is that this phone receives Digital Cingular service, while my old phone had Cingular Extend. Maybe because it activated from these towers - either way, it doesn't matter since I have free nation-wide roaming.

Thanks for everyone's help, and hopefully this thread might help anyone else who tries the same thing.

[bobolito]

I'm glad it worked for ya! The difference for the "Cingular" vs. "Cingular Extend" banner may be due to differences in the IRDBs but it doesn't make any difference for service or billing.