Picking up Canadian towers from the US side of the border

We are planning a vacation this summer that will take us to northern New York State and Canada. For part of the time we will be staying on the American side of the border. I asked Cingular customer service how we could avoid placing calls through Canadian cell towers and paying those exorbitant rates, but they weren't much help, saying that it was "a problem".

Is there any way to identify a Canadian tower? Does the "Cingular" graphic on my phone's display change to something else when a Canadian tower is accessed? We had a similar problem last year in the Caribbean, and received unexpected roaming charges of $900 for one week, while we thought we were using free US Virgin Island towers!

the Canadian tower will read ROGERS or FIDO

if you are near the border... do a manual network search and select CINGULAR manually... the phone locks on the strongest signal in the auto scan mode

the USVI coverage for new cingular is a recent addage...former ATT had it prior to the merger and now the rest of cingular has it

I recently went to Niagra Falls, and I can tell you that about half the time I was on Cingular and the other half I was on Rogers. In answer to your question, yes, when you are on a Rogers tower the word Cingular on your display will be replaced by Rogers. This was the case with my Nokia 6682, as Im sure is the casew on all Cingular phones. A good work around for this (although I agree its a problem as I called in as well and was told the same thing and that they are working on it) is to pay, I believe its either 5 or ten dollars, for the international roaming. I only paid for two months worth, and it considerably dropped my bill in the aspect of "roaming minutes". In your case however I cant say I would do that because you are going to technically be in the US. Although the CSRs in this forum might disagree with me, I would politly call in and tell them that I was incorrectly billed for roaming when I was in the US the whole time. When they told me it was a problem they were working on I would nicely tell them that I agree but its not MY problem. I didnt go out of the country, therefore your international roaming charges are incorrect. And to tell you the truth, i really think they would credit you for it. When I explain myself and I'm right, Cingular almost always comes through for me. When it comes to common sense and its a known problem on their behalf, I truly cant see them not taking your side. If you decide to call in and ask beforehand, make sure that if they say you wont be accountable for the charges that they thoroughly note it on the account, so you wont have to do the runaround when you return from your trip.

*LOL Elmo beat me to it, and I like that idea better, saves everyone the trouble*

I agree, but last year, while vacationing in the Caribbean, we picked up a cell tower on Anguilla, which displayed "Cingular" on our phone's display, although roaming charges were still applied. I fought those charges all the way to the CEO of Cingular, and they were finally dropped. It turns out that some foreign carriers send out a blank "tag", which your phone (my Motorola V220) replaces with the default "Cingular" tag. So we thought we were making free calls but we weren't. I guess the foreign carrier was playing a scam (which Cingular admitted) but there was nothing they could do about it. They finally ate the $900 roaming charges. I hope Canadian carriers are more ethical!

I would hope so too, but the fact that Cingular ate the charges should tell you that this little Canadian dilema wont be a problem. But I agree with Elmo, if you can manually switch your phone to strictly the Cingular network that would be the best and easiest way to take care of it.

Can you lock in the Cingular network permanently, so you don't have to worry about it? Or must it be done every time you use the phone? And what menu on my phone contains this option? Thanks!!

Menu – Settings – Network – Available networks

Then tell me if it gives you the option to choose one

For some reason, I don't have that option. Under Menu / Settings / Network I only have one choice: Network Setup. When I select that, I have a choice of Band: Automatic, 900, or 850 / 1900. Nothing about available networks.

It looks like the 850 / 1900 MIGHT make it stick to Cingular but I'm not sure, probably not. Rogers works off the same bands so it will probably still pick up the Rogers network. Its possible that this phones firmware was altered by Cingular to make it unable to switch manually between networks. If thats so then it looks like your stuck with simply dealing with this problem through Cingular CS.

Here's the reply I received from Cingular. I find it hard to believe that Cingular doesn't have the technology to make American and Canadian cell signals different, and tell you when you go from one to the other.

Dear Mr. Conklin,

Thank you for e-mailing us regarding you roaming question. We understand the urgency of resolving this quickly for you, and I will be happy to review your account for any errors.

Unfortunately, there is not a way to tell you are pulling off of a tower in Canada the phone will only say Cingular. So it would be at your discretion when using the phone that close to the boarder. You would not know that you were receiving roaming charges.

Sincerely,

Rick Shull

Cingular Wireless
Online Customer Care Professional

Picking up Canadian towers from the US side of the border

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