[nabs-l] international roaming and your Cell Phones at Convention

[Joseph C. Lininger]

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Nijat,
If your carrier can't help you, then you have a couple possibilities.

1. You might be able to set your phone not to rome. This varies by
phone, and even by carrier. Mostly by carrier in my experience,
actually. But it's worth looking at.

2. Depending on how the roming works in this specific situation, you
might be uneffected. Sometimes, in order to rome you have to speak with
someone on the target carrier's network and provide a credit card, etc.
instead of it automatically happening and being billed to your phone
later. I can't say if this is the case for you, but it might be.

3. Your phone probably displays your roming status. This isn't
necessarily accurate, but it's a pretty strong indicator of roming if
your phone's indicator shows roming. It's just that sometimes you could
be roming and your indicator wouldn't show it. If you don't trust the
indicator, see the final suggestion below.

finally...

4. You can try dialing 611 before making a call. This is the number most
carriers use for contacting customer service from your cell phone, and
it doesn't generally result in any charges even when roming. Sprint PCS
customers, dial *611 instead. This is how you reach your "current
carrier" customer service, be it Sprint PCS or some roming provider.
Everyone else should use 611. Nijat, specifically, use 611 since you're
with T-Mobile. This is probably more reliable than your phone's
indicator, but be aware there are cases when it could fail. For example,
let's say you dial 611 and get t-mobile, your carrier. Then you hang up
and start to dial the number you want to call. In the time you do that,
your phone switches to roming. It is unlikely, but it is a possibility.

Of these options, I recommend option 1 if you can do it, with options 3
and 4 together as a backup plan if you can't use option 1. Check the
indicator, and if you aren't sure do 611 or *611 depending on if you use
Sprint PCS or not. Then check the indicator again just before dialing
your final destination.


Hope this helps you all out.
Joe
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