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From: gutierre@nsipo.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: "Follow Me" Roaming Question
Message-ID: <10794@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 12 Aug 90 15:10:13 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 565, Message 9 of 9


DREUBEN@eagle.wesleyan.edu) (DOUGLAS SCOTT REUBEN) writes:

|> Had a question about "Follow Me" Roaming (*18/*19) on the "B" cellular
|> carriers:

|> I have service through GTE Mobilnet in San Francisco. When I go back
|> East, and try to activate Follow Me Roaming, it works until about
|> 12AM, Eastern. If I activate Follow Me before 12AM, everything is
|> fine, and Follow Me Roaming will continue to work until 3 hours later,
|> ie, 12AM Pacific time.

I recently experienced the joys of "Follow-Me-Ripoff"... err ...
"Roaming" while I was in San Diego, California about 2 weeks ago.

One of the problems I came across was that San Diego (Pac-Tel Celluar)
seemed not to have been able to handshake with my cell phone too well.
Calls through the local dial-in worked fine, but calls forwarded from
GTE Mobilnet/San Francisco seemed to die at San Diego.  I would hear
my phone being polled, but it gave up and then I got Pac-Tel's
unavailable recording.  I tried this about 3 times.  I then tried *18
to (re)activate it, and it did work this time, but I sometimes wonder
if it really worked after that.

Another thing was that my phone was being polled about every 1/2 hour
while I was in San Diego.  I thought this very strange, as why would
Pac-Tel Celluar care if I was still around or not, and what if I was
in and area where it wasn't working (like inside the Performing Arts
Center, where I was attending a convention).  This is annoying because
(a) I would assume it's putting a drain on my batteries and (b) it has
a Rat Shack 3db antenna on it, and it screwed up our VCR's while I was
making some copies, even though it was ten feet away!

Hmmm.


Robert Michael Gutierrez
Office of Space Science and Applications,
NASA Science Internet - Network Operations Center.
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California.