Rant about roaming in the city!

**quickinferno** · 02-21-2012, 01:51 PM

Mobilcity has disabled roaming in Ottawa to prevent unwanted roaming charges while at home.

However, my quarrel is that the system in place does not work and is counter-intuitive!

I have 3 devices, all of which are Mobi branded:

1. BB 9780 - Roaming won't work in city, but I'd prefer it to work cuz I can easily disable roaming on my phone!

2. Nokia E73 - Roaming works in city! but I'd prefer it not to work cuz I can't easily disable roaming.

3. Samsung C414Y - Roaming works in city! but I'd prefer it not to work cuz I can't easily disable roaming.

So for me, this "no-roam" policy has only inconvenienced me because it's giving me roaming issues outside of the city with my blackberry...

Does your roaming work in the city? Which city? and What phone?

**xtachx** · 02-21-2012, 02:11 PM

2. Nokia E73 - Roaming works in city! but I'd prefer it not to work cuz I can't easily disable roaming.

Settings --> Connectivity-->Network -->Network Mode. Change the "Dual Mode" to "UMTS"

Does your roaming work in the city? Which city? and What phone?

No it doesnt, and I am using a nexus one.

I still dont know if this is a phone issue or a SIM issue. Can you take the SIM from your C414 and put it in the BB and see if you can roam?

**bubble.tea** · 04-20-2012, 10:01 PM

GNex., Brand New guinea pig. I've set network selection to manual. So far no issues.

After a week and a bit, the only place where I haven't had FIVE bars is at the Sandy Hill Community Centre parking lot, LOL. 1bars. I'm impressed....or I need to venture beyond my usual treks to find these low coverage spots.

My intention is to minimize costs...not INCUR them...so I've never tried Roaming.

**quickinferno** · 04-20-2012, 11:31 PM

Originally Posted by bubble.tea

GNex., Brand New guinea pig. I've set network selection to manual. So far no issues.

After a week and a bit, the only place where I haven't had FIVE bars is at the Sandy Hill Community Centre parking lot, LOL. 1bars. I'm impressed....or I need to venture beyond my usual treks to find these low coverage spots.

My intention is to minimize costs...not INCUR them...so I've never tried Roaming.

just flick to manual and select roaming network.

**endlessdayz** · 04-21-2012, 01:16 AM

Phones are able to roam in the city if they are unable to pick up a mobilicity signal. Once you connect to roaming you have to manually reconnect to mobilicity. So if you in an underground parking lot and you don't have mobilicity signal you should fall into rogers unless you have set it to manual /turned roaming off on the phone side.

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**computergeek541** · 04-21-2012, 03:09 AM

Roaming works in a good chunk of the Toronto area (example: Mississauga).

Personally, I would prefer to be able to choose whether I want to roam and just be responsible for any of those charges myself. But, at the same time, I know that increases the likelihood that people will experience unexpected charges.

Part of the problem with Mobilicity's policy of disabling roaming with certain Mobilicity areas is the inconsistency of the policy. Either turn it on or off but not a little of both so that the customer doesn't know what to expect. There are places well within Mobilicity's boundaries that roaming is enabled.

**computergeek541** · 04-21-2012, 03:12 AM

Originally Posted by endlessdayz

Phones are able to roam in the city if they are unable to pick up a mobilicity signal.

not in places where Mobilicity's has had this disabled.

Much, if not most places that are advertised as being covered by Mobilciity have roaming disabled. You cannot roam in these places even if you want to.

**endlessdayz** · 04-21-2012, 04:57 AM

Originally Posted by computergeek541

not in places where Mobilicity's has had this disabled.

Much, if not most places that are advertised as being covered by Mobilciity have roaming disabled. You cannot roam in these places even if you want to.

Well I have learned something new now. Thank you.

**quickinferno** · 04-21-2012, 10:03 AM

Originally Posted by computergeek541

not in places where Mobilicity's has had this disabled.

Much, if not most places that are advertised as being covered by Mobilciity have roaming disabled. You cannot roam in these places even if you want to.

I can roam in a roaming disabled zone with my dumb-phones, but not blackberry <- very counter-intuitive.

Mobilicity technical support team refuses to acknowledge this issue and blatantly refuses to do anything about it.

**will888** · 04-21-2012, 12:02 PM

You can surely roam when you are near the edge of coverage. If you are near to border of the home zone and the signal goes dark, a strong signal from a rogers tower outside of the home zone will latch on. Bingo, you are roaming. It happens to me all the time.

**TimeRunz** · 04-21-2012, 12:53 PM

Originally Posted by quickinferno

So for me, this "no-roam" policy has only inconvenienced me because it's giving me roaming issues outside of the city with my blackberry...

Does your roaming work in the city? Which city? and What phone?

My BlackBerry 9780 doesn't want to roam in Ottawa either. I'll get a message saying that only emergency services are available. That said, I have had absolutely no issues trying to roam OUTSIDE Mobilicity coverage areas.

Originally Posted by bubble.tea

After a week and a bit, the only place where I haven't had FIVE bars is at the Sandy Hill Community Centre parking lot, LOL. 1bars. I'm impressed....or I need to venture beyond my usual treks to find these low coverage spots.

LOL, it's the latter.

Downtown Ottawa for the most part is pretty good, no complaints. I get good signal wherever I go downtown. The issue is suburbs that have sucky or no coverage like Barrhaven, Orleans, and parts of Kanata. That's where they need to focus on.

**onewhofightsfoo** · 04-22-2012, 08:29 AM

Vancouver....HTC Panache...roaming turned off as I don't need it on unless I leave the homeland area.
You can download a widget shortcut, if you have an Android type smartphone, from the Android Marketplace to avoid going into settings. If you don't mind a couple seconds of interactive setting bliss, download the widget!

Mobilicity frees Canadian cellular smartphone users - or at least - till one of the big 3 gobbles them up!

**bubble.tea** · 04-22-2012, 01:07 PM

Originally Posted by TimeRunz

...
LOL, it's the latter.

Downtown Ottawa for the most part is pretty good, no complaints. I get good signal wherever I go downtown. The issue is suburbs that have sucky or no coverage like Barrhaven, Orleans, and parts of Kanata. That's where they need to focus on.

Ahhh yes, the riff raff of Barr, Or...and Kannnn.

**nuclearbroccoli** · 04-22-2012, 03:39 PM

Originally Posted by computergeek541

Personally, I would prefer to be able to choose whether I want to roam and just be responsible for any of those charges myself. But, at the same time, I know that increases the likelihood that people will experience unexpected charges.

You are dead on with that. Just take a look at Wind's community forum to see the results of roaming in the home zone.... There are way to many people who don't know how to set their network manually.
Roaming in home zone = bad idea.

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**millergd** · 04-22-2012, 04:39 PM

I was in Navan today -- at the intesection of Navan Road and county road 47 (which is about 5 miles outside of their coverage zone). I had between 1-3 bars of service, and it only cut out when I went inside an aluminum-sided building (e.g. an EMC cage)

So the schmucks in the burbs and the hill-billies in rural Ottawa have better Mobi reception than their coverage map indicates.

On my 9810 never had a problem switching between Mobi & Rogers EDGE with automatic network cutover. Are you guys so poor you can't afford $10-$20 in your Mobi Wallet for incidental roaming?

~millergd~