mtdew999
Backwoods, Oregon
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Joined: 06/28/2003
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Many carriers are now dropping their "free" roaming if the customer uses more than some arbitrary amount of roaming. It does cost the cell company more in admin costs. Find out if ATT has a plan that includes more roaming, just as they carry plans for family texting and internet usage. It may be that you simply need to reapply the tools you use from your company. My daughter went through this recently with Sprint after moving to Oregon from Texas and finding that there wasn't a local Sprint tower (it roams using the local Verizon tower). She changed her plan to give her unlimited roaming for another $9 a month.
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Popsie
Livingston, TX, USA
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Joined: 04/04/2003
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Most the cell phone providers own at least some towers (some own a lot of towers), and they have arrangements with other tower owners for what used to be called roaming. Now, most of the agreements allow you to use the non AT&T (in this case) towers without incurring roaming charges. However, your cell phone provider doesn't make as much money, and may lose money, when you are operating on non-owned towers.
It sounds like AT&T has analyzed your usage and decided that you are losing them money, so they want you off their books.
It makes business sense even if it does create an unhappy ex-customer.
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sljkansas
Miami Co. Kansas
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Joined: 09/28/2005
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Cingular did that to use a couple of years ago. they said we used too much off network time for our national plan. They had a number to call for customer service that diddered from the regular number. I called and talke to them and explained that we bought 3 new phones about 7 months ago and the DD had a lot of download, what were thay going to do about that. They were very nice to work with and ended up refunding use $480. USD. We had to make the change over to another provider and the customer service rep had the account tagged so after the cut and final bill was sent (which came out of the refund before we got the $480) it took about 4 weeks to get the refund. If they hadn't done this the refund could hae taken 10 weeks to start and another possibe 10 weeks to get.
So if they gave youa a number to call, call it and ask for a refund, be polite it worked for me, and polite isn't always my strong point (but I'm improving)
Steve & Linda
Son married (1 DIL, 3 granddaughters 1 grandson)
Daughter in College
Miami CO. Kansas
2004 F350 CC dually 8ft bed 6.0 PSD
2009 Bighorn 3670RL
B&W under bed hitch with 18k companion hitch
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KarenInTheWoods
Wisconsin
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Joined: 03/08/2008
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mtdew999 wrote:Many carriers are now dropping their "free" roaming if the customer uses more than some arbitrary amount of roaming. It does cost the cell company more in admin costs. Find out if ATT has a plan that includes more roaming, just as they carry plans for family texting and internet usage. It may be that you simply need to reapply the tools you use from your company. My daughter went through this recently with Sprint after moving to Oregon from Texas and finding that there wasn't a local Sprint tower (it roams using the local Verizon tower). She changed her plan to give her unlimited roaming for another $9 a month.
Yes, we just went through this with Sprint this past spring. We used to be *unlimted roaming* and *unlimited usage* on a long-grandfathered plan of over 5 years. But as of July 17, 2009 they were making all those unlimited contracts into 5GB with only 250MB of roaming allowed.
It turns our home is located just beyond one of their towers, so we were roaming most of the time even at our own home, by connecting to a different tower and costing them huge roaming charges. So they nicely said we can get out of our contract and they refunded us a month of pre-paid service.
We went to this website and found which other provoider did carry a signal over our house. It happened to be AT&T, and yes, we are subject to a 5GB limit too, but no longer are we roaming.
Movearoo internet signal locator
We plugged in our address and it showed us which companies carried what strength of signal (or avialability of DSL etc) over our home.
Karen and Steveio
1996 Safari Serengeti 38 ft DP
Honda Helix up on back rack
(My new Blog RVing: Small House - BIG Backyard
(Camping/Family Photos) http://picasaweb.google.com/pfundt/
(my eStore) http://kareninthewoods.etsy.com/
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jweather
US
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Joined: 09/04/2009
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Just curious if anyone has had issues with this with Verizon yet... my work cell and aircard are both through Verizon, and we're wandering all over the country. If they decide to complain about roaming, I could be in trouble...
'05 Dodge Ram 3500 DRW
'07 Travel Supreme 36' 5er "The Toy Hauler" (full of Fisher-Price)
Self, DW, 3yo boy, 1yo girl, and lots of happy memories
FT since June '09
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seadawg
Tampa Bay, Florida
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Joined: 04/12/2008
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For my parents, it was the roaming part of the contract that got them. 100% roaming for several months kicked out on a computer run, I guess, and they were cancelled.
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bka0721
Republic of Colorado
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Joined: 03/19/2008
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I have had AT&T since the mid 90s (and Cingular when they were called that briefly). My wife, two kids and my mom were on my plan, here in Colorado. My mother ended up relocating to Goodland, KS and continued to use the AT&T phone that I had given her. She used it sporadically, but left the phone on to accept calls.
During an audit of phones, AT&T discovered that one of my phones was being continuously used “outside their calling area.” AT&T did not have a designated calling area for Kansas. They notified me by letter that this phone was to be canceled and they would offer this cancellation without any penalty for the phone to be cancelled. I learned from talking with the Customer Service provider that it was not just phone being used outside their designated area, but the phone being left on still incurred a cost to AT&T when the phone was on a different provider. We picked up a “pay-as-use” phone at the local Wal-Mart for her to use, until she passed away.
AT&T advised me that when their phones are used outside the contracted area more than a certain percentage, it is flagged by their computer and they begin tracking these users. I don’t remember what percentage they stated, but I remember it was not that high. I still have the other phones, so they only cancelled the one.
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Jim & Betty
Brandon, South Dakota
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Joined: 08/29/2003
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I have ATT also and I have to be thoughfull about this as well as I assume most ATT users that RV in other states or areas.
In the ATT contract it says (in mine anyway) that if I use the phone out of area for more than 50% (50 may be wrong as I am suffering from CRS lately) of the time, contracted minutes per month) you will be canmcelled. Now I am not sure what out of area is but I assume it is the area on there coverage map that shows a partner or no service. So I assume that to get out of this I could buy more minutes to therefore not bust the 50 / 50 limit. I do think that data is very strongly mentioned in that area but I do use data just talk.
If you call they will tell you before you get cancelle. I did look at an I Phone once and this was dicussed with ATT as I wanted to stay in SD for 6 month or more and there was no ATT service there at that time, there is now in Sioux Falls and rapid City.
JimR
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Here'n'There
Texas
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Joined: 10/09/2008
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Here's another TWO CENTS for Sprint. We are FT'ers and even before that lived in a number of states coast to coast. Sprint cell service is great and since going FT, the Sprint Aircard has been working well every where we have travelled so far (see signature map of travels).
I guess we have the "3g" service and now they are advertising "4g"... I have no idea what the "g's" are all about but am looking into it.
We'll see ya..............
Here'n'There
Dodge Ram 3500 Quad Cab Long Bed Diesel Dually
Carri-Lite 36SBQ 5th Wheel
On the road with Here'n'There
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itsabouttime
Fulltiming
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Joined: 09/18/2005
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Having read this kind of thing before on the forum, I prodded Sprint customer service asking about the time in or out of home area. The answer was that the entire continental US is considered our home area. It might not be true for all accounts but mine is not an expensive plan. As fulltimers, we spend more time away from our address of record than in it and have had no problems so far (3 years on the road).
Russ
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