For the past couple days I haven't been able to make/receive calls or text so I go to a local sprint today and they say that they have been having a lot of complaints from people in my particular location. However, Sprint isn't acknowledging that there is an issue for whatever reason, so i'm left sol unless I force my phone to roam (which i'm currently doing through an app). Everything is working fine now, however i'm worried that I may incur unknown charges as I do not know sprints policy regarding this.
Also, I read a while back that there is a hack that allows us to default to Verizon's towers and I was wondering if anybody could point me towards that thread because I can't seem to find it, assuming it's still active.
Thanks for any help guys.
It depends on your plan. My plan includes roaming at no charge. Even with that though there is a danger. Sprint reserves the right to terminate your contract (and service) for "excessive roaming". I do not know if there is a hard limit that defines "excessive". I do know that I have hard of people being terminated if a majority of their voice minutes were roaming or if they used large amounts of roaming data. I sure fire way to get your service terminated is to use the hack to force your phone to roam on Verizon too often.
I believe most sprint customers can roam for data up to 300mb a month, and your voice calls can roam up to half of the amount of minutes you used on sprint. So if you have used 100 minutes on sprint this month, you could roam for up to 50. These arent strictly enforced, they arent going to charge you for using 52 minutes, but if you start to abuse it, they could charge you or force you to leave sprint.
I've been using the Verizon PRL at work because of horrible data reception. Been using roughly 200mb roaming a month with no issues and no charges.
As long as your plan has roaming...
Off-network Roaming: The primary use of your Device must be for domestic purposes within the Sprint-owned network. Domestic means use in the 50 United States and U.S. Territories (except Guam). Sprint reserves the right, without notice, to deny, terminate, modify, disconnect or suspend service if off-network usage in a month exceeds: (1) voice: 800 min. or a majority of minutes; or (2) data: 300 megabytes or a majority of kilobytes. The display on your device may not always be on and will not indicate whether you will incur roaming charges. You can monitor usage online through My Account. Roaming is not available with single-band phones, or to customers who reside or whose primary use is outside an area covered by the Nationwide Sprint Network. Sprint may limit or terminate service if you move outside of the Sprint owned-network.
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I just got booted for excess roaming. I told them there was something wrong with my evo months ago because it would be roaming even when it said it wasn't.
Either way though, now I go to boost. But just one last thing. I had 3 different reps at sprint tell me that roaming is "included in my bill", but no matter what, it still uses your anytime minutes or whatever they are called. I had it clarified several times by supervisors and everyone else... If you look on your bill, you will see that your total usage (in the downloadable excel file) will include any of the minutes that say "out of network".
So basically, even if they tell you roaming is included, what they mean is you aren't being charged cash for it... it simply uses up your anytime minutes. If you keep heavy track of that stuff with the nifty apps in the market or even by hand, you will notice if you have say 1200 minutes, use 100 anytime minutes on sprint during the day, and 100 roaming minutes at night, you will only have 1000 minutes left. Don't trust the vague answers sprint will give you, do the math yourself. It is scary how they can make a lie sound like you are not getting screwed.
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I have my Epic set to not roam for data ("Data roaming" is un-checked), and have Data Roaming Guard enabled. Every now and then, I'll end up someplace where the phone warns me every 30 seconds or so that data roaming might incur charges if I click "OK". I click "cancel", and get asked the exact same question again ~30 seconds later. There's a checkbox for "don't ask me again".
The $3,000 question: if you check "don't ask me again", does the phone interpret that as:
a) automatically apply 'ok' or 'cancel', depending on which one you click to dismiss the warning after selecting the checkbox
b) don't bother to ask whether or not you want to let the phone data-roam, just do it silently and insidiously, regardless of whether or not "Data roaming" is (supposedly) enabled with a checkmark?
Common sense suggests that it would probably be 'a', but then again, common sense suggests that if you have "Data roaming" explicitly un-checked, it shouldn't be bothering you with "do you want to enable roaming?" in the first place -- it should just refuse to roam, and let the network connection fail. It's almost like they intentionally worded the options to leave you scratching your head screaming "WTF?!?" so you can't easily disable one of the few services left that isn't free, unlimited, and included with the normal billing amount.
I turned the roam guard off and I had the same popup every 30 seconds. Soft reset and it went away. I suggest that.
I don't know if you know this but I found this out last month if you are on one of the new sprint plans which if you have an epic I would assume you would have to be roaming data is free of charge so you don't need to have the roam guard on the plan includes unlimited roaming data usage.
Tried updating the PRL?
Have you tried going into settings>About Phone>System updates>Update PRL?
PRL stands for "Preferred Roaming List".
If you want to know more look it up on wikipedia. And no, it wont brick your phone
I thought roaming was "free", but ONLY if you use <200 minutes or 200 megabytes. I'm not sure about the exact cut-off, but I'm pretty sure I remember seeing it in Sprint's fine print somewhere.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
I tried updating the PRL, but got an internal unspecified error.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
You could just turn off roaming completely, until you actually need it.
I found that some places it would switch to roaming, but if I turned roaming off it would switch back to Sprint. Dont know why
How? That's what I'm trying to *do* ;-)
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Guys,
Leave roaming on and disable the warning. Sprint roaming charges are not applicable if you are in the
$69.99 unlimited package for smart phones such as the Epic. The roam option is still there because its part of the legacy infrastructure and, as a result, they ended having to incorporate into the code. No worries. You will not be charged for roaming unless you travel outside of the US territories covered in the contract. WARNING: If you go on a cruise and you are caught in international water navigational routes, roaming charges might apply.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
I second what littlepr just said. A month ago I was in the mountains of NC with almost no service and I kept having to roam in order to make calls. When I got home I talked to a Sprint Rep via Chat Support and they also said that with our plan roaming is free. It was at this point that I downloaded Roam Control so that if I am ever back in the mountains or somewhere else with crappy service, I can force the phone to roam so the signal is more reliable. Works like a charm!
Ever since I purchased one of my previous phones about a year ago I noticed that the carrier I was about to sign up for stated that they offered free wifi as part of the package. So basically you could connect to a wifi signal and they wouldn't charge you for it. At the time I said to the sales person that surly that's always the case as the wifi signal is not apart of the data usage and its and external source the data. The sales person said that some carriers do change for this though.
Is this true? I still do see carriers advertising this as part of the package so wondered it some contracts don't come with "free wifi"
My network (T-Mobile US) does not charge for data or calls (providing you have the "Free WiFi Calling" addon) over WiFi, however, I think texts are still charged.
On O2 in the UK it's free use of The Cloud at it's hotspots, and supposedly BT Openzone hotspots (can I use them? like bugger can I!) where as otherwise their use would be chargeable
Sparksltd said:
Ever since I purchased one of my previous phones about a year ago I noticed that the carrier I was about to sign up for stated that they offered free wifi as part of the package. So basically you could connect to a wifi signal and they wouldn't charge you for it. At the time I said to the sales person that surly that's always the case as the wifi signal is not apart of the data usage and its and external source the data. The sales person said that some carriers do change for this though.
Is this true? I still do see carriers advertising this as part of the package so wondered it some contracts don't come with "free wifi"
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You're talking about their hot spots right, asnd not say, your own personal wireless network?
Sparksltd said:
Ever since I purchased one of my previous phones about a year ago I noticed that the carrier I was about to sign up for stated that they offered free wifi as part of the package. So basically you could connect to a wifi signal and they wouldn't charge you for it. At the time I said to the sales person that surly that's always the case as the wifi signal is not apart of the data usage and its and external source the data. The sales person said that some carriers do change for this though.
Is this true? I still do see carriers advertising this as part of the package so wondered it some contracts don't come with "free wifi"
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I imagine they are talking about Hotspots coming with their network. For example I can connect for free to any SFR xDSL box in France if its Hotspot function is enabled.
Evidently if you connect your phone to your personal WiFi Network your phone provider can't charge you for anything...
Ya, I believe hotspots talking about too. Ie, here in Canada a provider called bell has wifi hotspots I believe at Starbucks and they are free with some plans, if not all. Don't think anyone can limit wifi access, although I think with blackberrys they maybe able to, not with androids tho, and why would they limit you.
On AT&T if at an at&t hotspot at like starbucks or something the data used from the hotspot is free and not counted against your plan.
For T-Mobile, minutes/texts are still charged when you are on WiFi if you don't purchase the WiFi hotspot plan - which is a additional $10 a month. Texts are still charged if you are on WiFi with the plan but not minutes.
crawler9 said:
My network (T-Mobile US) does not charge for data or calls (providing you have the "Free WiFi Calling" addon) over WiFi, however, I think texts are still charged.
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Wifi calling DOES use minutes and texts (texts are ONLY charged if you, pay per text or have a limited bucket, ie: 500 texts per month)
T-Mobile USA ( I'M in Jersey City NJ) does NOT charge for wifi usage, only mobile data usage.
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Babydoll25 said:
Wifi calling DOES use minutes and texts (texts are ONLY charged if you, pay per text or have a limited bucket, ie: 500 texts per month)
T-Mobile USA ( I'M in Jersey City NJ) does NOT charge for wifi usage, only mobile data usage.
Pipsqueak approved this message.
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T-Mobile told me that WiFi Hotspot Calling feature is a free add-on for most plans. They added it for me and when I'm using WiFi, minutes don't come out of my rather limited bucket of anytime minutes. Texts are not affected by WiFi calling. You'll pay (or not) just as you normally would. Without the add-on, WiFi calling will use minutes, but with it, it won't. Sorry I took so long to respond, but I just hadn't been following this thread.
Sent from my HTC Glacier using Tapatalk
crawler9 said:
T-Mobile told me that WiFi Hotspot Calling feature is a free add-on for most plans. They added it for me and when I'm using WiFi, minutes don't come out of my rather limited bucket of anytime minutes. Texts are not affected by WiFi calling. You'll pay (or not) just as you normally would. Without the add-on, WiFi calling will use minutes, but with it, it won't. Sorry I took so long to respond, but I just hadn't been following this thread.
Sent from my HTC Glacier using Tapatalk
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I think you should call T-Mobile back and get a clarification, you seem to have been given wrong information.
WiFi calling on T-Mobile DOES eat into your minutes. T-mobile has provided WiFi calling as a way to make up for their ****y network and dead spots in many areas. However, using wifi calling still uses your minutes.
Hi xaccers
xaccers said:
On O2 in the UK it's free use of The Cloud at it's hotspots, and supposedly BT Openzone hotspots (can I use them? like bugger can I!) where as otherwise their use would be chargeable
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BT Openzone and BT Fon is free if you have a BT Total Broadband account.
Which is an unlimited amount of data usage up-to your monthly package, i.g. 10GB, 40GB, or Unlimted.
Which as you say, other wise it must be purchased.
Take Care
TheQuest
SamsungVibrant said:
I think you should call T-Mobile back and get a clarification, you seem to have been given wrong information.
WiFi calling on T-Mobile DOES eat into your minutes. T-mobile has provided WiFi calling as a way to make up for their ****y network and dead spots in many areas. However, using wifi calling still uses your minutes.
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My bad, perhaps you were right. I just had multiple T-Mobile employees telling me otherwise. Apparently they don't know what they're talking about and at least now I do.
Sprint called to say Im using too much roaming data and is threatening to terminate my account. Even though my account and bill and everything says unlimited roaming data, they say Im only allowed 300MB per month...
Problem is, at work I get zero Sprint signal because of admitted problems with their network, so its either roam or nothing at all.
Is there a widget that will let me monitor my roaming data usage every billing period?
Updated: It was merely coincidental that when I rooted, I also reached a 5gb limit on my data plan. The first Verizon rep I talked to, probably like most, refused to admit there was any throttling going on and was willing to send me a new SIM card rather than tell me the truth.
However our tech department today did get a Verizon representative to admit that our corporate unlimited data plan actually does throttle users starting as early as 5 gigabytes. The decision of when to throttle is market dependent. Therefore in crappy little congested markets like mine where there is not a lot of good bandwidth to begin with, throttling can come as early as 5 gigabytes. However in bigger cities, throttling is not likely not to occur until higher data usage has been met. Verizon's corporate unlimited plan is unlimited where you get unlimited data, but after a certain point you can be throttled to unusably slow one x speed. Unlike T Mobile, Verizon does not admit readily that they do this and does not put this on their website. I have to give tmobile respect for being more upfront and honest in the first place about their very similar plans.
Everything from the original thread below is answered in the paragraph above.
So here's my conundrum. I recently had to Oden my s5 back to stock because something went wrong when enabling download booster. After re-installing stock with Oden, doing download booster (no issues the second time) and several other tweaks, including getting SHealth and XPosed to play friendly, removing all the other bloat via the script running around this forum and adding buttons to the notification panel, I have noticed my data is really slow (Data plan only, WiFi is fine).
REALLY Slow!
I know it's not Verizon, as I have two Verizon phones (S5 and Razr M) and the Razr works fine - in fact, multiple speed tests show the Razr M getting speeds 500-1000x faster than my S5. My S5 clocks in at or below 0.1 Mb/S. I didn't discover the problem until leaving the house and realizing that I didn't have enough data to stream Songza or Milk or tunein once I wasn't on my home network.
The s5 shows the 4GLTE symbol and does have a data flowing... it's just like looking at Early Era Dial Up when next to my other device on the same network. The phone itself is speedy and shows no signs of issue. Like I said, I didn't know there was a problem until I finally left the house.
I had noticed that the download booster wasn't useful for me as the LTE speeds were always too slow so it just went with WiFi in my testing, so this tells me that the error occurred very shortly after flashing stock with Oden. The Oden image I used was: ALL_VZW_G900VVRU1ANCG_G900VVZW1ANCG_964333_REV00_user_low_ship_MULTI_CERT.tar.md5 I thought this to be the correct one for my phone.
Before the reflashing, my phone was speedy on the verizon network. In fact, I had used it to tether a few times as it was better for streaming the World Cup than Time Warner on ESPN3. FWIW, I am on an unlimited corporate data plan with the S5.
Thoughts, please?
Try switching between Global to LTE/CDMA or vice versa. I noticed that my data speeds tend to change with the settings. Prior to rooting, speed test after speed test in the same location it was quicker with LTE/CDMA than Global.
Since rooting my data rate was significantly slower under LTE/CDMA than Global, switched it back and I felt like the speed test were coming back to normal. Which is odd because I just assumed it only altered with whether or not it looks for GSM signal when roaming.
WillTheGreat said:
Try switching between Global to LTE/CDMA or vice versa. I noticed that my data speeds tend to change with the settings. Prior to rooting, speed test after speed test in the same location it was quicker with LTE/CDMA than Global.
Since rooting my data rate was significantly slower under LTE/CDMA than Global, switched it back and I felt like the speed test were coming back to normal. Which is odd because I just assumed it only altered with whether or not it looks for GSM signal when roaming.
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Sadly I had already tried this. It was on Global to start, I switched, no help, and switched back (as my working phone is also on Global, so I assumed that was the correct default setting on Verizon. Thanks for the idea though.
It's the Sim Card (or account)
Out of curiosity I switched the sim cards between my personal phone (limited GB standard plan) with my work phone (unlimited corporate plan). With my personal card in my work phone, the speed is again blazing. Once I put the correct sim card in, the speed drops to near zero. I did this test twice.
So does that mean Verizon puts a data speed limit on unlimited corporate accounts when they wish, or does that mean something is wrong with the sim card? I didn't think Verizon limited their data speeds on an individual basis on LTE. I also didn't think they limited their corporate data plans, but it would seem as if they do.
Does anyone have any insider knowledge about this? Thanks.
david1pro said:
Out of curiosity I switched the sim cards between my personal phone (limited GB standard plan) with my work phone (unlimited corporate plan). With my personal card in my work phone, the speed is again blazing. Once I put the correct sim card in, the speed drops to near zero. I did this test twice.
So does that mean Verizon puts a data speed limit on unlimited corporate accounts when they wish, or does that mean something is wrong with the sim card? I didn't think Verizon limited their data speeds on an individual basis on LTE. I also didn't think they limited their corporate data plans, but it would seem as if they do.
Does anyone have any insider knowledge about this? Thanks.
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If swapping SIM cards fixed the problem then you probably have a bad sim, or it went bad. You can ask for a new one.
WillTheGreat said:
If swapping SIM cards fixed the problem then you probably have a bad sim, or it went bad. You can ask for a new one.
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Sadly, I got a new SIM and it didn't work either. Swapping SIMs confirms that it is a sim issue, though, as I have one non working SIM that doesn't work in two phones and one working SIM that works in two phones. Sadly, Big Red has now sent me to non-functioning SIMs as far as I can tell.
So i only use sprint data roaming when i go to my hunting land, but i was tethering and used 3 gigs in one day watching football games on my computer and sprint cut off my data roaming until my next billing cycle starts. I know I have heard of those hacked PRLs that dont show the roaming icon when they are loaded, is there anyway to use one of those, or anything else so that sprint doesnt think I am roaming when i actually am roaming? Its another week before I can use roaming data again. Never had this problem before, so I am assuming sprint changed their data roaming limit.
Sprint always had a 300mb roaming data limit. They don't track everyone but if you get caught going over on multiple occasions your account can be terminated.
Its 100mb now I chatted with them lastnight
Or is there a way to hide tethering data usage? Maybe thru a VPN or something?