Re: Sprint roaming on Verizon towers - a myth?

I know in Louisville KY in the VA Hospital, Verizon roams on Sprint, as
Sprint PCS has antennas on all four corners of the hospital. So I'm sure
there is somewhere in the area where Sprint users roam on Verizon. That is
the cheapest and easier was to make trade offs in coverage and not directly
compete.

AL


"*" <momcat1@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:5JRee.9536$Hf6.9128@fe11.lga...
> I was speaking with a local brick and mortar agent the other day, and
he
> told me something I don't think makes sense. He said that Sprint roams on
> all of the local Verizon towers. Being a current Verizon customer who has
> been searching for more dependable coverage, and having personally spent a
> good deal of time researching the local tower issue, this doesn't make
sense
> to me. 4 years ago, Verizon customers were allowed to roam on the only
local
> Sprint tower (yes, there's only one), and at some point that was closed to
> us. That's when signal got a lot worse at the house since the Sprint tower
> is closer to us than any of the Verizon towers. Currently I'm searching
for
> a better solution, since Verizon seems to be like swiss cheese here. Can
you
> confirm or deny this claim? I'm in Dutchess County, NY.
>
>
>

At the time AC was introduced (around 4 years ago), Sprint and Verizon
signed an intercarrier roaming agreement for their entire network.
Sprint could roam on verizon (but roaming would be charged), and
Verizon could roam on Sprint as regular minutes.

Within a year, Verizon probably realized it was losing tons of money on
the deal, since the package pricing caused verizon users to roam (while
verizon ate the cost) a lot more often than sprint users roamed on
Verizon. Verizon began slowly removing Sprint roaming areas from their
PRLs, and eventually shut off roaming in some areas for those who kept
old PRLs.

>From what I hear, this was not a two-way shutoff, as Sprint and Verizon
had no financial incentive to shut off roaming to sprint users since
costs were passed on to the customers. I also heard of new sprint
free-roaming plans, so your agent may be correct. You may be able to
better confirm on alt.cellular.sprintpcs

-MVL