DREUBEN@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Douglas Scott Reuben) (12/05/90)
Although many non-GTE/San Francisco Customers who have Cellular
service in California and Reno, NV may allready have this, GTE/SF now
claims that the newer version of "Follow Me Roaming" is now working
for its customers. Information and rate schedules for this feature
are to be sent to customers in their January bills.
Since Follow Me Roaming has many activation delays, and due to the
fact that frequently after 9PM, Pacific Time, (12AM Eastern, when the
previous day's activations are erased) one can not use the system for
a good part of the evening, the California "B" systems have had, for
some time, a system that automatically follows you around. GTE/SF has
NOT been allowing its customers to use this system (because of
testing?) until now.
I don't think it is in the nature of a DMX (like the "A" systems tend
to have between, let's say, Boston and Rhode Island), and thus I am
told one can not use call-forwarding, etc., while in the roam/foreign
market, as roamers in many of the DMXed areas can.
BUT, on the positive side, it doesn't cut-out at 9PM, and there is NO
activation delay!
All you need to do is press *28 to activate and *29 to deactivate. (I
THINK those are the right numbers ... haven't tried it yet, but a
friend of mine in Sac told me it worked for Pac*Tel customers.)
An added bonus is that unlike FMR, if you have your calls *72/Forward
to voicemail, you can press *28/*29 as often as you need to, and
whenever the system is in a *29 ("don't follow me") mode, all callers
will get your voicemail. FMR didn't work this way, and after you hit
*18 there was no way to get back to your voicemail until you got back
to the GTE/SF area. (You could, however, use *71 to your voicemail,
which seems to stay active after a FMR deactivition, ie, *19.)
Also, since I mentioned a DMX, do any Cell One or LA Cell. customers
know if there is a DMX between "A" carriers in CA? Can, for example, a
Cell One/Sacramento customer forward calls and/or get call-waiting
while roaming in, let's say, Santa Barbara? San Francisco? etc?
Guess that's it.
Doug
dreuben@eagle.wesleyan.edu
dreuben@wesleyan.bitnet