Cingular cell phone service - Service in St. Thomas

Author

Service in St. Thomas

Greg

2007-03-13, 10:33 pm

I'm confused. Hopefully someone has an answer or can point me to a
source. Every year our family takes a winter break in St. Thomas. The
last couple of years I had no problem getting good cell service. This
year I struggled. The earlier years I had a Nokia 6340. this year I
have a Sony Erickson W300i. One of the capabilities I made sure of
before upgrading my phone was that it was a full quad band unit.
Supposedly the SE is.

What happened to me was that even though my phone showed a full 5 bars of
signal strength, it displayed "No Network Service" except when first
powered on. If I cycled the phone on and off, it came up with Cingular
service and let me make a call. If I waited a couple of minutes, it
reverted to no network again. This was very frustrating. Anyone know
what was going wrong? Is my phone bad? It works just as fine now that
I'm back home as it did before I left.

Thanks.

SMS

2007-03-13, 10:33 pm

John Navas

2007-03-13, 10:33 pm

On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 12:00:45 -0700, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in < 45f6f4e1$0$27162$742
ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>Greg wrote:
>
>When you had the 6340, which was a GAIT phone, are you sure you were
>always on GSM rather than TDMA or AMPS? That is probably the reason for
>the reduced performance.
>
>Even if it were GSM on the 6340, Nokia handsets have much better RF
>performance than Sony-Ericsson phones.

As a general proposition that's simply not true:
Some Sony Ericsson handsets are very good; some are not so good.
Some Nokia handsets are very good; some are not so good.

>[SNIP usual pro-CDMA anti-GSM fantasies]

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ Cingu...less_FA
Q>

SMS

2007-03-13, 10:33 pm

Greg wrote:
> I'm confused. Hopefully someone has an answer or can point me to a
> source. Every year our family takes a winter break in St. Thomas. The
> last couple of years I had no problem getting good cell service. This
> year I struggled. The earlier years I had a Nokia 6340. this year I
> have a Sony Erickson W300i. One of the capabilities I made sure of
> before upgrading my phone was that it was a full quad band unit.
> Supposedly the SE is.

(sorry, I forgot to copy my earlier reply to alt.cellular.attws)

When you had the 6340, which was a GAIT phone, are you sure you were
always on GSM rather than TDMA or AMPS? That is probably the reason for
the reduced performance with the new phone--you can't use the older
networks, which often provide better coverage.

Even if it were GSM that you were using on the 6340, Nokia handsets have
much better RF performance than Sony-Ericsson phones.

CDMA coverage on St. Thomas is very good, so next time maybe bring along
a prepaid CDMA phone, though I'm not sure that prepaid will work there.
My kid's prepaid PagePlus CDMA phones couldn't make calls in Canada.

[Copied to alt.cellular.attws. Please post all alt.cellular.cingular
posts to alt.cellular.attws as well. The Cingular name is going away,
and alt.cellular.attws is the proper venue for posts regarding AT&T's
Wireless Service.]

Dennis Ferguson

2007-03-13, 10:33 pm

On 2007-03-13, Greg <x_gblum@cox.net> wrote:
> have a Sony Erickson W300i. One of the capabilities I made sure of
> before upgrading my phone was that it was a full quad band unit.
> Supposedly the SE is.
>
> What happened to me was that even though my phone showed a full 5 bars of
> signal strength, it displayed "No Network Service" except when first
> powered on. If I cycled the phone on and off, it came up with Cingular
> service and let me make a call.

I'll make a huge guess that could be entirely out to lunch. Was the
place where you were spending time near Red Hook, or at least at the
eastern end of the island, maybe on the north coast? And do you not
have international roaming enabled on your account?

I haven't been to St. Thomas for a while, but my wife goes there sometimes.
She used to come back with major roaming charges on her Cingular bill.
The reason is that while Cingular service is spotty on St. Thomas there
is a GSM operator in the British Virgin Islands which seems to put out
major signal, enough that my wife's phone would apparently register with
it when Cingular dropped out and then stick with it, particularly
(according to her) at that end of the island. I eventually "fixed" this
by setting the phone she went with to 850/1900 MHz only (I think the BVI
network might be 900 MHz) and manual network selection; she now no longer
gets big roaming bills. Unfortunately the option to do this is something
Cingular seems to like to drop from the menus on their branded phones.

If any of this sounds familiar to you then my guess (grasping at straws)
would be that you might be seeing this other network now because of your
quad-band phone, and that your phone is somehow sticking with this strong
network that it couldn't get service from rather than searching for
the weak Cingular home network. This behaviour is kind of broken,
though I know it is approximately what CDMA phones do when they go into
E911 mode so it might not be entirely inexplicable.

If none of this seems right, however, then never mind.

Dennis Ferguson

John Navas

2007-03-13, 10:33 pm

On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:11:48 -0500, Dennis Ferguson
<dcferguson@pacbell.net> wrote in
<slrneve4sk.85.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com>:

>On 2007-03-13, Greg <x_gblum@cox.net> wrote:
>
>I'll make a huge guess that could be entirely out to lunch. Was the
>place where you were spending time near Red Hook, or at least at the
>eastern end of the island, maybe on the north coast? And do you not
>have international roaming enabled on your account?
>
>I haven't been to St. Thomas for a while, but my wife goes there sometimes.
>She used to come back with major roaming charges on her Cingular bill.
>The reason is that while Cingular service is spotty on St. Thomas there
>is a GSM operator in the British Virgin Islands which seems to put out
>major signal, enough that my wife's phone would apparently register with
>it when Cingular dropped out and then stick with it, particularly
>(according to her) at that end of the island. ...

The likely cause of that problem is that signal from Tortola (BVI) is
line of sight (over St John), whereas Red Hook is behind a hill from the
transmitter on St Thomas.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ Cingu...less_FA
Q>

John Navas

2007-03-13, 10:33 pm

On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 13:23:14 -0700, TROLL SMS
<scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in
< 45f70836$0$27239$742
ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>Greg wrote:
>
>(sorry, I forgot to copy my earlier reply to alt.cellular.attws)

No apology needed or desired, since you partial copies to
alt.cellular.attws are only serving to pollute that newsgroup with crap.
Please have at least some consideration and STOP. Post if you want to
either/both newsgroups, but STOP spewing partial threads.

>When you had the 6340, which was a GAIT phone, are you sure you were
>always on GSM rather than TDMA or AMPS? That is probably the reason for
>the reduced performance with the new phone--you can't use the older
>networks, which often provide better coverage.

Not true.

>Even if it were GSM that you were using on the 6340, Nokia handsets have
>much better RF performance than Sony-Ericsson phones.

Also not true.

>CDMA coverage on St. Thomas is very good, so next time maybe bring along
>a prepaid CDMA phone, though I'm not sure that prepaid will work there.
>My kid's prepaid PagePlus CDMA phones couldn't make calls in Canada.

Also not true.

>[Copied to alt.cellular.attws. Please post all alt.cellular.cingular
>posts to alt.cellular.attws as well. The Cingular name is going away,
>and alt.cellular.attws is the proper venue for posts regarding AT&T's
>Wireless Service.]

See above.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ Cingu...less_FA
Q>

SMS

2007-03-13, 10:33 pm

Dennis Ferguson wrote:

> If none of this seems right, however, then never mind.
>
> Dennis Ferguson

I bet that his GAIT 6340 was connecting to an AMPS network, and that he
didn't realize it. The GSM coverage on St. Thomas is not good, and they
probably have an old AMPS network. I think most people never look to see
which network they're on. I always check when I'm away from home to see
if I'm likely to be charged roaming, but most people probably pay no
attention.

John Navas

2007-03-13, 10:33 pm

On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 17:48:09 -0700, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in < 45f7464d$0$27167$742
ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>
>
>I bet that his GAIT 6340 was connecting to an AMPS network, and that he
>didn't realize it. The GSM coverage on St. Thomas is not good, and they
>probably have an old AMPS network. I think most people never look to see
>which network they're on. I always check when I'm away from home to see
>if I'm likely to be charged roaming, but most people probably pay no
>attention.

The digital network on St Thomas is actually pretty good, as you would
presumably know if you'd ever been there.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ Cingu...less_FA
Q>

Greg

2007-03-14, 12:33 pm

Dennis Ferguson <dcferguson@pacbell.net> wrote in
news:slrneve4sk.85.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com:

> On 2007-03-13, Greg <x_gblum@cox.net> wrote:

>
> I'll make a huge guess that could be entirely out to lunch. Was the
> place where you were spending time near Red Hook, or at least at the
> eastern end of the island, maybe on the north coast? And do you not
> have international roaming enabled on your account?
>
> .................. <snip>
>
> If any of this sounds familiar to you then my guess (grasping at
> straws) would be that you might be seeing this other network now
> because of your quad-band phone, and that your phone is somehow
> sticking with this strong network that it couldn't get service from
> rather than searching for the weak Cingular home network. This
> behaviour is kind of broken, though I know it is approximately what
> CDMA phones do when they go into E911 mode so it might not be entirely
> inexplicable.
>
> If none of this seems right, however, then never mind.
>
> Dennis Ferguson

You may be onto something, but not the location. I was in the south
central part of the island - Charlotte Amalie. I do not have
International Roaming on my account. It sure seemed like the scenario
you were describing, however. I was getting a full strength signal from
someone, just not Cingular. When I cycled the phone and it came back as
Cingular the strength was 2-3 bars. When it reverted to 'no network' it
jumped to full.

I had also thought about the GAIT issue, but with discounted it since my
SE was showing such high strength of something. I'm not technical enough
to know for sure, but I would have thought that my GSM phone would not
even know a TDMA signal existed. My 6340 didn't really tell me when it
was in GSM, TDMA, or AMPS mode so I wouldn't have known if it was
switching. I do know that I had no trouble making or receiving calls and
didn't have any extra charges (roaming or otherwise) on my bill after
returning home.

I'm betting that you may be right on and that BVI provider is the
culprit. Is there any way to set my phone to pick up and stick with a
Cingular signal regardless of its strength instead of jumping to a
stronger but not supported network? I would have thought this was
standard behavior.

Dennis Ferguson

2007-03-14, 10:33 pm

On 2007-03-14, Greg <x_gblum@cox.net> wrote:
> Dennis Ferguson <dcferguson@pacbell.net> wrote:
> news:slrneve4sk.85.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com:
[...][color=darkred]
> You may be onto something, but not the location. I was in the south
> central part of the island - Charlotte Amalie. I do not have
> International Roaming on my account. It sure seemed like the scenario
> you were describing, however. I was getting a full strength signal from
> someone, just not Cingular. When I cycled the phone and it came back as
> Cingular the strength was 2-3 bars. When it reverted to 'no network' it
> jumped to full.

No, that doesn't sound right. The BVI provider is already quite far
away, and is on the other side of the hill from Charlotte Amalie.

There's another possibility for CA though. Were there any cruise ships in
the harbour when you were there? Those ships often have GSM service
on-board now, and I think you also need international roaming enabled
to use that service as well.

> I'm betting that you may be right on and that BVI provider is the
> culprit. Is there any way to set my phone to pick up and stick with a
> Cingular signal regardless of its strength instead of jumping to a
> stronger but not supported network? I would have thought this was
> standard behavior.

The option to do this is often in the menus under "Setup->Network", though
this varies with phone model and I'm not familiar with yours.

Unfortunately the phones that Cingular sells often have the network
selection menus disabled, and the default behaviour is never the one
you are expecting. The default usually is any-band, any-signal,
so the phone will roam seamlessly, and you need to go to the menus
(which may not exist) to select other behaviour.

The missing network selection menus is on of the reasons I don't
often buy Cingular phones any more since, as it seems might be the
case in your situation, sometimes you really need them. You might
get international roaming enabled on your account before you go again,
since then the phone display would at least tell you what is going on
rather than saying "No Network". If you don't have network selection
menus on your phone you could also try to dispute any roaming charges
you put on with Cingular when you get back; this worked for me once.

Dennis Ferguson

cledus

2007-03-15, 10:33 pm

Dennis Ferguson wrote:
> On 2007-03-14, Greg <x_gblum@cox.net> wrote:
> [...]
>
> No, that doesn't sound right. The BVI provider is already quite far
> away, and is on the other side of the hill from Charlotte Amalie.
>
> There's another possibility for CA though. Were there any cruise ships in
> the harbour when you were there? Those ships often have GSM service
> on-board now, and I think you also need international roaming enabled
> to use that service as well.
>
>
> The option to do this is often in the menus under "Setup->Network", though
> this varies with phone model and I'm not familiar with yours.
>
> Unfortunately the phones that Cingular sells often have the network
> selection menus disabled, and the default behaviour is never the one
> you are expecting. The default usually is any-band, any-signal,
> so the phone will roam seamlessly, and you need to go to the menus
> (which may not exist) to select other behaviour.
>
> The missing network selection menus is on of the reasons I don't
> often buy Cingular phones any more since, as it seems might be the
> case in your situation, sometimes you really need them. You might
> get international roaming enabled on your account before you go again,
> since then the phone display would at least tell you what is going on
> rather than saying "No Network". If you don't have network selection
> menus on your phone you could also try to dispute any roaming charges
> you put on with Cingular when you get back; this worked for me once.
>
> Dennis Ferguson

In most cases, the manual network selection menus appear when roaming
outside of the USA with Cingular phones. They are only suppressed while
in the USA. You should be able to manually select the BVI Cingular
network by navigating to the network settings and scanning for Cingular.
I suspect that a new signal is confusing the phone and it gets stuck
on it. Give that a try the next time you roam outside of the USA.

SMS

2007-03-16, 4:33 am

Greg wrote:
> Dennis Ferguson <dcferguson@pacbell.net> wrote in
> news:slrneve4sk.85.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com:
>
>
>
> You may be onto something, but not the location. I was in the south
> central part of the island - Charlotte Amalie. I do not have
> International Roaming on my account. It sure seemed like the scenario
> you were describing, however. I was getting a full strength signal from
> someone, just not Cingular. When I cycled the phone and it came back as
> Cingular the strength was 2-3 bars. When it reverted to 'no network' it
> jumped to full.
>
> I had also thought about the GAIT issue, but with discounted it since my
> SE was showing such high strength of something.

You'll often see a good signal that you can't use with both GSM and CDMA
if there is no roaming agreement with whoever the signal belongs to.

The reason I would think that GAIT had something to do with it with the
6340 is because it's likely that any AMPS service there belonged to
either Cingular (AT&T) or Verizon, and the Cingular AMPS would be fair
game for non-roaming service (and perhaps the Verizon AMPS as well).

> I'm not technical enough
> to know for sure, but I would have thought that my GSM phone would not
> even know a TDMA signal existed.

I think it's a mistake to believe that the GSM signal that your SE phone
picked up was the same signal that the GAIT phone was actually using in
the past.

Remember that the 6340 would not pick up a 900 MHz or 1900 MHz GSM
signal, but the SE will. There are too many variables here to be sure of
anything, but the whole reason for the GAIT phones was to be able to use
the more extensive AMPS and TDMA networks while the GSM network was
being built out.

> My 6340 didn't really tell me when it
> was in GSM, TDMA, or AMPS mode so I wouldn't have known if it was
> switching. I do know that I had no trouble making or receiving calls and
> didn't have any extra charges (roaming or otherwise) on my bill after
> returning home.

Because you were probably not roaming, you were probably on AT&T's AMPS
network, if it existed there. There also may have been a roaming
agreement with the other AMPS network. Last time I roamed onto the
Cingular/AT&T AMPS network on my Verizon handset I was not charged
roaming, and I assume that this is because Verizon once had a roaming
agreement with AT&T Wireless for AMPS.

Maybe you could use the 6340 on your trips to St. Thomas, and the SE at
other times.

SMS

2007-03-16, 4:33 am

[Sorry I meant 1800 MHz, not 1900 MHz. Also forgot to copy to
alt.cellular.attws as we're supposed to be doing.]

Greg wrote:

> I had also thought about the GAIT issue, but with discounted it since
my SE was showing such high strength of something.

You'll often see a good signal that you can't use with both GSM and CDMA
if there is no roaming agreement with whoever the signal belongs to.

The reason I would think that GAIT had something to do with it with the
6340 is because it's likely that any AMPS service there belonged to
either Cingular (AT&T) or Verizon, and the Cingular AMPS would be fair
game for non-roaming service (and perhaps the Verizon AMPS as well).

> I'm not technical enough to know for sure, but I would have thought
that my GSM phone would not even know a TDMA signal existed.

I think it's a mistake to believe that the GSM signal that your SE phone
picked up was the same signal that the GAIT phone was actually using in
the past.

Remember that the 6340 would not pick up a 900 MHz or 1800 MHz GSM
signal, but the SE will. There are too many variables here to be sure of
anything, but the whole reason for the GAIT phones was to be able to use
the more extensive AMPS and TDMA networks while the GSM network was
being built out.

> My 6340 didn't really tell me when it was in GSM, TDMA, or AMPS mode
so I wouldn't have known if it was switching. I do know that I had no
trouble making or receiving calls and didn't have any extra charges
(roaming or otherwise) on my bill after returning home.

Because you were probably not roaming, you were probably on AT&T's AMPS
network, if it existed there. There also may have been a roaming
agreement with the other AMPS network. Last time I roamed onto the
Cingular/AT&T AMPS network on my Verizon handset I was not charged
roaming, and I assume that this is because Verizon once had a roaming
agreement with AT&T Wireless for AMPS.

Maybe you could use the 6340 on your trips to St. Thomas, and the SE at
other times.

[Copied to alt.cellular.attws. Please post all alt.cellular.cingular
posts to alt.cellular.attws as well. The Cingular name is going away,
and alt.cellular.attws is the proper venue for posts regarding AT&T's
Wireless Service.]

Dennis Ferguson

2007-03-16, 3:33 pm

cledus <cledus@noemail.net> wrote:
> Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>
> In most cases, the manual network selection menus appear when roaming
> outside of the USA with Cingular phones. They are only suppressed while
> in the USA. You should be able to manually select the BVI Cingular
> network by navigating to the network settings and scanning for Cingular.

Which phones work that way? I've not bought Cingular phones since the
network selection menus aren't there in the showroom, but I never
thought they might show up somewhere else.

The only phone I own from Cingular, a Motorola V3, definitely doesn't
work like that. The menus are gone inside and outside the US, and with
a Cingular or foreign SIM in the phone.

Of course, the biggest problem in the US Virgin Islands is that they
are still in the USA.

Dennis Ferguson

cledus

2007-03-18, 10:33 am

Dennis Ferguson wrote:
> cledus <cledus@noemail.net> wrote:
>
> Which phones work that way? I've not bought Cingular phones since the
> network selection menus aren't there in the showroom, but I never
> thought they might show up somewhere else.
>
> The only phone I own from Cingular, a Motorola V3, definitely doesn't
> work like that. The menus are gone inside and outside the US, and with
> a Cingular or foreign SIM in the phone.
>
> Of course, the biggest problem in the US Virgin Islands is that they
> are still in the USA.
>
> Dennis Ferguson

I'm pretty sure that all phones should work this way. A colleague of
mine travels to Europe often and it works for him. A message is sent to
your SIM when roaming abroad that turns the menu on. You may need to
have international roaming activated for your account. And you
definitely need a Cingular SIM. It may require a Cingular version of
the phone also -- not sure.

Even thought the USVI are USA territories, the mobile network codes
broadcast there are different from the CONUS. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ List_...br /> ry_codes. So as far as
the phone/sim are concerned, it is a different country, as are the
British VI's. In concept, it should work there. It wouldn't hurt to
give it a try if you already have a Cingular phone/sim.

Dennis Ferguson

2007-03-18, 10:33 am

On 2007-03-17, cledus <cledus@noemail.net> wrote:
> Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>
> I'm pretty sure that all phones should work this way. A colleague of
> mine travels to Europe often and it works for him. A message is sent to
> your SIM when roaming abroad that turns the menu on. You may need to
> have international roaming activated for your account. And you
> definitely need a Cingular SIM. It may require a Cingular version of
> the phone also -- not sure.

Thanks. I have all of the above. I will ask Cingular why this doesn't
happen with the Cingular phone I have since my wife likes to travel with it.

> Even thought the USVI are USA territories, the mobile network codes
> broadcast there are different from the CONUS. See
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ List_...br /> ry_codes. So as far as
> the phone/sim are concerned, it is a different country, as are the
> British VI's. In concept, it should work there. It wouldn't hurt to
> give it a try if you already have a Cingular phone/sim.

Actually, while the USVI has an MCC assigned it wasn't in use, at least
on St. Thomas, when I was last there. The available networks were 310-380
and 310-410. I suspect 310-410 is still there.

Dennis Ferguson

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