Roaming with Pearl 8130 on Sprint
 

In my area Sprint coverage is can be spotty and I am getting a lot of dropped calls. How do I enable roaming on my pearl? And is there a way to set my phone to roam always?

Go to options, mobile network, and you can change the settings there. You can only change it to automatic or home only, don't think thats to roam. I believe you can oly roam if you don't have sprint service at all. Also, call sprint and make sure roaming is on your account. You'd think it would automatically be on there but sometimes its not. We can add it for free if not though. If not then you will be raped with roaming charges.

Man I was bummed when you confirmed that I would only be able to roam when Sprint service was available. And then I read about the new firmware update for the 8130 and one user posted that the difference he noticed with the new firmware was the option to choose ROAM only mode rather than be limited to automatic/home. So I did the update, which was found on the sprint site, and after installing it on my phone I was relieved to find that it really does now allow ROAM only option. Because the Sprint signal is so poor in my house it was a serious relief to find this option.

Have you tried a PRL update? Sometimes that will help with coverage issues.

Also check out the Airave device that Sprint is testing out. Provides a mini-cell tower in your house that connects to your home network. Someone here on the forums did a review of it.

I don't know when it's being released in all markets, though.

Great! It looks like the demo phone I was using didn't have the update. Glad it worked out for you!

That's not true. I manage over Sprint phones for our company and we have never had to ask for roaming. It's included in all of Sprint's plans.

That's not true. Some people with older plans still don't have roaming included. Believe me, I have customers yelling at me because they have roaming charges on their accounts.

Do they have BlackBerry devices?

Yes, I only take blackberry calls. You can have any voice plan on there a blackberry so your question is irrelevant. Why does everyone on here like to argue?

It's Saturday and I'm bored. ;-)

Ok, ok. So the OLD plans didn't have roaming.

Does Sprint still actually force people to pay for roaming then if all of their new plans include it for free?

No, usually I just refund them for the roaming charges and add on the free addition to include roaming. Not every rep would do that though, since we don't have any policies in that regard. Yeah, Saturdays shouldn't be this boring... though I'm still at work, so we'll see how later turns out! ;)

and I also said in that post you quoted: "make sure roaming is on your account. You'd think it would automatically be on there but sometimes its not."

So SOMETIMES it's not! HA HA HA! But you are right though, usually thats not a problem

I'm not sure if the update has provided a better signal but of the calls that I have made tonight I haven't had any drop like usual so that is an improvement, and thankfully I have roam always now, just have to avoid using excessive minutes to avoid being flagged on their system or whatever.
Kenneth do you know any additional info about the Airave that isn't on their website? I want to get one but don't need the unlimited minutes option that it includes, I just need better reception in my house.

Actually what exactly is a prl update?

Prl stands for preferred roaming list, and it just provides your phone with information as far as what provider it should roam to first if sprint is not available. Like here is an example:

verizon: 12 cents
att: 13 cents
tmo: 15 cents

If that is the updated prl, then if the sprint signal is not available, then your phone will roam with Verizon as its first choice if its available because sprint has a deal with Verizon that it will charge 12 cents to use their towers, and since that's the cheapest it will use them first. So if they aren't available then your phone will go to the second and so on.... a lot of people thin that a prl update will help with coverage and dropped calls, but you really wont notice a difference, only sprint will. It's really just for them. As far as the airave, I will look up some information when I get to work. I took a course on it, I just can't remember off the top of my head. I will post a brand new thread with accurate information on it when I get to work. I'll just copy the information from the course. It has info on how it works, when it will be out, cost and all that... can't remember off the top though... but I'll let you know asap!

Thanks again for the info, and I'm looking forward to finding more about the Airave.