Am I getting BS from a Salesman about Unlocking my phone and roaming charges

I am about to switch to Cingular as all my fam and friends have it. But I want to keep my Nokia 6800. I have seen that I can unlock my phone, but the salesman said you don't want to risk it because:

"when you go out of metropolitan areas the phone will look for any tower to find service, and if it finds a non-cingular tower you will get charged roaming. You see, our locked phones are locked in such a way that it does not allow the phone to use non-cingular towers. If you unlock your old At&T phone it will be free to look for other towers and you could end up with a $500 roaming bill."

Is this right?

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He's feeding you a line of Bull****...

That is what I was thinking, I figured he wants commision on the phone, but please tell me more, what keeps it from accessing other towers?

Originally Posted by caliskier

That is what I was thinking, I figured he wants commision on the phone, but please tell me more, what keeps it from accessing other towers?

Not sure but I've been using unlocked/unbranded phones for the last 5 years and never any charges.

that doesn't even make sense what he's saying.

from what i understand, cingular has roaming agreements with t mobile and some other small gsm carriers. and since cingular is gsm, it wouldn't roam to any other network. so, by process of elimination and rational thinking, you won't get charged for roaming since you can't roam.

i'd give that guy a slap and a wtf!

Originally Posted by Tstright

Not sure but I've been using unlocked/unbranded phones for the last 5 years and never any charges.

Yeah, you can buy unlocked phones at best buy, that should not cause you any problems.

Originally Posted by nic_hitchins

that doesn't even make sense what he's saying.

from what i understand, cingular has roaming agreements with t mobile and some other small gsm carriers. and since cingular is gsm, it wouldn't roam to any other network. so, by process of elimination and rational thinking, you won't get charged for roaming since you can't roam.

i'd give that guy a slap and a wtf!

That makes sense

Thanks all for your help.

https://www.officialringtonechart.com/unlocking/

When I signed up for Cingular, all of thier plans were nationwode anyway so there was no roaming.

Originally Posted by jwilliman

When I signed up for Cingular, all of thier plans were nationwode anyway so there was no roaming.

i think his question was more along the lines of if an unlocked phone will endure roaming charges since it's finding other towers before cingular's own towers.

it's easy for cingular to promote no roaming. they're in agreements with the only other gsm carrier, T-Mobile (and all the old ATT towers cingular inherited). they CAN'T roam on sprint, nextel, verizon, us cell, etc. it's technologically impossible.

bottom line is that the sales guy probably wanted to sell a phone to get a commission. so he gave you the line about how your unlocked phone will search for the 'best' signal and can pull in a different 'carrier' with better signla strength than cingular, therefore leading to roaming charges. but, any gsm cell user knows that this isn't true due to the roaming agreements.