Help with roaming!

Hey all!
I've been a T-Mobile customer for about 3 months now and am having some serious issues that the T-Mobile reps just don't seem to be able to help me with.
I'm wondering if I'm asking the right questions or if I'm just simply stupid

So, I thought I'd come here and get some advice from people with far more experience than me!

Ok, here's the deal:
My g/f and I have a national shared plan. It includes the usual free nights/weekends, free national roaming, etc.

We both live in Cleveland, OH, USA, though in different buildings about 1/2 mile apart. Since getting the phones, she has had terrible reception in her apartment. Usually her phone shows one bar of signal strength and she has frequent dropped calls, etc. After going over and seeing that the situation was even worse with my phone, I said "Well, at least we get free roaming, right? So we should be able to connect to another network" Although T-Mobile reception is crappy in her apt, Verizon, Cingular, Sprint, and AT&T all come through very strong. So, I went into my phone's settings and into the network settings and set it to manual in the network selection menu. It searched for a second and showed me both AT&T and Cingular as being available. I tried connecting to both, but got the error message "No System Access" and a pic of a little Stop sign on the screen.

So, I decided to call T-Mobile's tech support. I called and told them about the issue and during the first phone call, the rep pretty much dodged the roaming issue, everytime I would bring it up he'd just change the subject back to her bad reception in the building. He seemed completely baffled by this and kept saying over and over that we are in an extremely strong signal area and that no matter where we are in any building we should get strong signal (which is generally the case). I tried telling him over and over again, that obviously there was something about the building that was making our signal weak, but that I knew that AT&T signal was very strong in the building (had friends check with their phones) However, he simply said he would put in a service request to have the T-Mobile engineers come out and check the area. He asked for my land-line number in case they needed to call. So we waited about 2 weeks and got no response. So I called back again and the issue was generally the same, with the rep going on and on about how there's no way we're not getting good signal in her building, she had us turn off our phones and told us to leave them off for a while, then turn them back on and check the signal strength (not sure how this can help. I may not know much about cell phones, but I'm pretty well versed in electronics as a whole) So, a few days later when still nothing had been done, I called a 3rd time, and told the guy that all I was interested in discussing was our roaming issue. I think he got the hint. I told him that not only can we not manually choose networks that I KNOW we should be connecting to in her apt, but that we'd been on a few trips and had been to places outside of TMobile's area and we weren't able to roam there either (it simply never connects to anybody but TMobile). So he was like "Yes, sir, I'm very sorry. You are paying for roaming and you should be able to connect to other networks, so I'll put in a service request and your issue should be resolved within 4 days. If it's not, call back on a landline and we'll try troubleshooting the phones"

So, I was out of town for a bit, and when I got back, it had been two weeks and still no dice. So I called a 4th time. This time I spent like 5 minutes recounting the whole story to the rep and said that we have a national plan and that we should be able to roam. She told me that they can't troubleshoot connecting to other networks unless I'm in an area outside of tmobile's coverage area. I told her about my trying to manually connect to other networks here and she implied that my getting an error connecting to other networks while in a TMobile area was no indication of whether or not I could actually roam........ugggg
In addition, after the first phone call I sent TMobile an email (cause I was too lazy to call that day) After several emails back and forth I quickly realized that I should NEVER EVER try using TMobile's email tech support again. they simply could not understand my question. I told them basically all that I've told you and they kept sending me back messages saying things like "We're sorry sir, but your free nights and weekend minutes don't apply to roaming" It was almost as if a computer were responding and not a human!!!!


So, first, sorry for wasting so much of your time with my long story. I just need to know if you guys are able to go into your phone's settings and manually choose other networks even when you are in TMobile's area? Does it sound to you as though I'm actually having a problem or is this just how crappy cell phone service usually is? While i have a land-line, my girlfriend and her roommate got rid of their land line and both just use their cells. Her friend has Cingular and the calls are crystal clear in the building. My g/f has T-Mobile and our record for a call was about 5 minutes before it was dropped, and this was with her practically hanging out the window and still only getting 1 bar of signal. If she walks to the other end of the apt, TMobile disappears completely and her cell screen is blank (the same as what happens when we should be "roaming' outside TMobile's area)

You advice is desparately needed!
thank you in advance!

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› See More: Help with roaming!

Quite honestly, it sounds like your girlfriend is in an area where T-Mobile simply just doesn't have a strong signal. If the rep told you that she is in a "great" coverage area, he was relaying information displayed on TMo's Interactive Coverage Map (ICM), which designates great coverage, good coverage, marginal coverage, no coverage, roaming partners, etc. I suspect that, for whatever reason, conditions in the structure of the building are hindering the signal, unfortunately. It might be helpful to call customer service and as them to do an ICM query to find out if any cell towers are scheduled for erection (ha) in the next 6 months. That is a common procedure.

If the coverage does not improve and no new sites are planned, then it is TMo's policy to release you from your contract with no Early Termination Fee. Not a great solution, I know, but an option.

When the rep advised you to turn your mobile phone off, then turn it back on, it was good advice. This should be done at least once a day (twice in the NY area), preferably in the morning. It's called "powercycling". When the phone is cycled on, it reaches out for the strongest signal available at the time, and connects to it. A new tower could be built in your back yard and, if the phone is not powercycled, it would not connect to it.

As for your inability to connect to a roaming partner, that is a mystery to me at this point and I will research it further for you tomorrow when I have access to the T-Mobile database (Streamline). My Samsung E715 and my Motorola V300 are always set to "automatic", so, after reading your post, I went into Network Services and attempted to manually select AT&T. It failed. Not sure why, but I know a lot of very knowledgable, good, dedicated people at TMo and I will try and get an answer for you.

JeffC

Thank you for the very informative and helpful post!
It's awesome knowing that there is a community as helpful as this one out there for those of us who are a bit confuzzled about cell phones :-)

Like you said, I figured that the reception problem is just her building, and it's perfectly understandable, so no problem there.

As for power cycling the phones, your explanation was very helpful. I didn't realize that upon cycling the phone, it searched for the strongest signal to lock on to. I figured this was a continual process, so that's good to know for future reference. :-)

Thank you for looking into the roaming situation for me, although the fact that you also aren't able to manually connect to other networks is a bit disheartening. Other than in my g/f's apartment, TMobile reception in this area is good and we've been very pleased with the service. I was kind of hoping that "roaming" was going to fix the problem. I guess sometime I'll have to take a drive somewhere I know that TMobile doesn't cover but AT&T does. Seems strange to me though that even if we set our phones to "automatic" and walk to a place in the building where there is no Tmo signal (the words TMobile and signal bars completely disappear), it still won't connect to any other networks.
Is it possible that the phone is still getting some miniscule amount of signal from the TMo tower and thus won't roam or something?

Well, anyway, I really hope you are able to get some info for me! Thank you so much again!!!

I have issues inside my house too. Some buildings I have bad reception but if I'm near a window or like in the mall or something I get pretty good reception. As for roaming didn't think you could roam I thought it was automatic. When I took a cruise and flew down to Puerto Rico I was roaming off AT&T wireless then I believe it was Barbados I roamed off Verizon but it changed automatically. The bill wasn't pretty....

Hi All,

I'm running into a problem very similar to the one first described.

I'm in an area of San Mateo, CA which receives very poor signal. Walk a block west and it boost dramatically.

Calling and emailing T-Mobile has resulted in no help.

But during my last call, the rep told me that there were no plans to add new towers, but kindly offered me 50 additional minutes (which I had to laugh - if I can't use my phone due to a poor signal, why on earth would I want extra minutes?!).

OK, so long story short, she asked what else popped up during a manual network search - AT&T does, but when I try to connect, it says, "Forbidden"... she replied it was because I was in a poor signal area (no kidding!)

I'm on their 1000 mins a month with free roaming and I really love this phone.

Is there a reason why I cannot connect to AT&T? Shouldn't I be able to without any problems?

Thanks in advance!

-MaaXen

It seems as though all of you can and pay for free roaming, and that there are other networks available in your area, yet you can't use them. That just blows my mind. Sounds like a total scam to me, paying for service you don't get like that. Sux.