Dennis Ferguson wrote:

> Yes, I remember you also saying you weren't charged for roaming
> on Cingular AMPS in Florida too. I don't know if you lead a charmed
> life or if there's something wrong with my phone or PRL, but when
> I've tried I got no service from Cingular AMPS on my AC2 Verizon phone
> where my Sprint phone got it.

I went back and looked at the call details for the time I was out in the
Everglades and there were no roaming charges for those calls (I had
assumed there were none since the monthly charges hadn't changed, but I
had never checked the call details, and thought that maybe those calls
would be billed later). It's been three months now, so I don't think any
roaming calls are going to show up. I did some international roaming in
February, and those charges showed up right away, so they're good about
quick billing even though they claim that such calls may not appear on
the bill right away.

> I also have a friend who I think is a
> Verizon customer who told me he once had to phone 911 back there when
> is phone was getting service with no bars. He dialed 911 and the call
> connected, but when he was done he said he now had an "Emergency Only"
> all-bar analog signal. The only way he could get rid of it and make the
> phone search for native service again was by powering the phone
> off and on. I think his phone also didn't roam on Cingular AMPS.
> I'd been assuming that anywhere Verizon (or Airtouch or PacTel)
> didn't have towers the state just got AT&T (or Cellular One?) to
> provide call box service instead, which might also explain why Cingular
> would keep towers on that most of their customers can't use.

On my old Motorola 270C I could manually switch to the alternate AMPS
network, and I'd get "American Roaming Network" and be prompted for a
credit card. When I try my old DPC550 AMPS phone, it goes to Verizon's
AMPS network, and they tell me I have no service and to contact Verizon
to set up a temporary account. So I know that both AMPS networks are
still operating in my area (of course they are because they aren't
allowed to be turned off until 2008).

> Note that I haven't had a phone for a while that would tell me who
> the service is coming from, and my friend's use of Sprint service
> doesn't necessarily prove anything since Sprint is fairly promiscuous
> about roaming these days.

Yeah, the only way I know what AMPS network I'm on is if I use an
unactivated Verizon AMPS phone and switch between A and B. One side is
Verizon, one side is ARN (but I assume that this would be AT&T if I was
using an old AT&T AMPS phone, but I don't have one.