Sprint & Alltel Announce Roaming Deal

Andrew Revering · Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 12:07 am Post subject:

Well... I went through an area that supposedly has AllTel service today... Monticello, MN. However, I was unable to connect.

The SID of what I was trying to connect to was 1369, but according to MountainWireless.com, that tower belongs to HickoryWireless or something like that?? I didn't see anything about that tower that blatently said it was an AllTel tower, so its quite possible I wasn't even in the right location.

I may try again tomorrow. Does anyone know where I could find a AllTel tower along I-94 between St. Cloud, MN and the Twin Cities?

xenophon · EVDO Addict Joined: 30 Aug 2005 Posts: 2004

I googled for Alltel Hickory and it looks like Alltel acquired them so the SID listing is probably correct, though it hasn't been updated since about 2002.

Not a good sign though as you have a 580 and did a manual PRL update, right?

Andrew Revering · Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 1:39 pm Post subject:

That's correct... PRL 20222 and forced to roam using aircard 580

jpkuehner · EVDO Newbie Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 1

I tested this morning and all I get is a registration error everytime I try. I get the same thing on my Treo 700p and my aircard. My 700p is using PRL 20222 and my aircard has 20221. I checked the tower that I am on and it is an alltel tower.

I was talking to someone else and they were wondering if this was just the date the agreement started and it wasn't the rollout date.

I hope this starts working soon. I live in an Alltel area but work in a Sprint area.

I tried to get something out of customer support and they knew nothing about this agreement. They just kept repeating that vision won't work when roaming.

xenophon · EVDO Addict Joined: 30 Aug 2005 Posts: 2004

I'm beginning to wonder if the July 1 date is an effective agreement date rather than a rollout date. No one on TreoCentral has got it to work either in Alltel areas with latest PRL.

rukshmani · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 25 May 2006 Posts: 23

I spoke to several CSRs and they don't have any idea about the Roaming Agreement. They keep talking about Canda and Maxico roaming.

Finally I sent and email to the Marketing Executive who researched it and asked me to Update PRL, when I told him that I have already done that, he opened a ticket for me. Also, I suggested that if nothing else if he can atleast find out when we are going to get new ROM update for PPC 6700, which might unlock the phone for DATA roaming. I hope he has some answers. I also hope that other people do the same and make them realise that in the new bulettin they should specify in future full details that " THE SERVICE GOING TO BE EFFECTIVE FROM MM/DD/YYY I.E 07/01/2006" and "CUSTOMERS WILL BE ABLE TO USE THIS SERVICE FROM MM/DD/YYYY i.e 08/08/2009"

liwenc · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 21 Jul 2005 Posts: 17

I was working in the small town of Enfield, NC this week. I have never been able to receive signal there using an S620 card, but on Wednesday, not only did I have a strong signal, but device diagnostics showed it as being EVDO. Connection Manager showed that I was connected, but I was unable to receive e-mail or access the internet, so it didn't do me any good. I can't imagine that Sprint has any plans to implement EVDO in such a rural area. How can I tell if my signal is through Sprint or Alltel?

xenophon · EVDO Addict Joined: 30 Aug 2005 Posts: 2004

It's dissapointing that no one has been able to get Alltel data roaming working yet. Many on TreoCentral have tried, with latest PRL and still no luck.

There was a PRL update, 20222 for EVDO phones that favors Alltel roaming to Verizon. But it hasn't been officially released to laptop cards yet.

I'm guessing the July 1 date is the effective date of the voice roaming extension and not the rollout date of data roaming. I've sent an email to our rep about it but have had no response.

BTW, to tell which network you are roaming on... in the Connection Manager, point mouse over Go button, type ##DEBUG and a screen should appear. Look for the SID number and compare to this list...
http://www.mountainwireless.com/sid.htm

For phones, dial ##DEBUG# to get the SID.

Michael · Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2006 10:07 am Post subject:

Well, here are details from contacts within Sprint:

xenophon · EVDO Addict Joined: 30 Aug 2005 Posts: 2004

Bummer, but good to know. Too bad that wasn't clarified when announced. At least we know it's on the way.

Andrew Revering · Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2006 4:12 pm Post subject:

So what exactly is the 3rd quarter of 06? Would that be considered summer of 06...like say up to September at the latest? Or do quarters start at a different time than the 1st of the year?

MaximumSignal · Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2006 4:15 pm Post subject:

Andrew Revering · Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2006 11:33 am Post subject:

I was out storm chasing yesterday over parts of SW/Central Minnesota, and 3 times I 'Connected' to AllTel towers. I verified in 3 locations that I was on AllTel towers and I was roaming, CONNECTED to their towers.

However.... since I was storm chasing and the signals were weak, I was unable to verify that data was transferring.

I tried to do it quickly while we were driving, but I would drop the signals before anything could transfer.

But in my attempts to connect in the past, this is the first time that connections tried to connect, Authenticated and Connected. They held the connection long enough for me to verify 1xRTT connection, roaming, and which tower it was on.

I dont recall the SIDs anymore, but it was a tower near Madison, MN, the one SW of Willmar, MN and the one next to it to the SE of Willmar, MN.

Do we have data roaming yet?? I'm not sure that data is flowing, but they definately are getting close, they seem to be accepting sprint cards on their network now.

liwenc · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 21 Jul 2005 Posts: 17

I'm back in Enfield, NC today, and was able to verify that my SID is 1541. It wasn't listed on Mountainview, but 1540 and 1542 are Alltel's so I'll assume 1541 is as well. When connecting manually, a roam guard message comes up, but when I try to connect, I get an error message that my username and password couldn't be verified. I guess this is among the stack of things Alltel and Sprint have to work out before roaming can actually happen. At least I'm showing a strong signal, so my EVDO capabilities will be greatly enhanced when I'm working in rural NC once roaming is enabled. 3Q2006 can't come soon enough!

xenophon · EVDO Addict Joined: 30 Aug 2005 Posts: 2004

Sprint/Alltel voice and sms roaming does work, always has but your voice roaming will of course give you an idea where you will be able to data roam. Q3 will just be the start and it might be a while for all regions to have data roaming active.