> In 1995 when "they" were "Cingular One" ?? Don't you really mean
> "Cellular One" !!
Of course. I never said I could type. It was SBC. At the time, they
were the only cell carrier available because the B franchise was held
up by the claim of a local Indian tribe who said they had the rights
to it. The FCC finally decided the Indians were bogus, and they had a
lottery among the area ILECs which my own tiny telco won. They sold
the license to Frontier and after the usual array of mergers and
spinoffs, it's now part of VZW.
> Generally the way it works is if the home carrier (in this case
> T-Mobile) offers service in a locality you can only use them. If they
> do not offer service in a locality often times a roaming partner may
> offer service *if* the home carrier has a roaming agreement with the
> other carrier.
Yeah, it depends on what they mean by locality. T-Mobile has a tower
in Ithaca, but that's the only one around here. Cingular has great
coverage, and Cingular and T-Mobile have extensive roaming agreements.
The question is whether they roam here.
> All carriers including T-Mobile usually have a trial period of 14 days
I bought a T-Mobile prepaid SIM on ebay for $9.85. That should be
plenty to find out whether it works.
R's,
John
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This goes back many years, but does
anyone remember when, in the Chicago metro area, Illinois Bell (or
Ameritech) was the so-called "B" carrier with 'Ameritech Wireless'
and Celluar One was the "A" carrier? But then travel down the
highway toward St. Louis and it flip-flopped; Ameritech became the
"A" carrier and SBC (doing business as 'Southwestern Bell Mobility')
was the "B" carrier? I think 'B' was always the established land-
line phone company and 'A' was the maruders, or invaders into the
established telco territory. It was that way all over the USA, with
an A/B system; where established telco was 'B' and whoever got the
franchise otherwise was the 'A' side. PAT]
John Levine (johnl@iecc.com)