ghg@ei.ecn.purdue.edu (George Goble) (11/30/88)
{{{ Volume 188 of the TELECOM Digest is a special issue. }}}
{{{ I'll let Patrick speak for himself: }}}
{{{ }}}
{ [Moderator's Note: I was pleased to receive a letter from George Gobel }
{ discussing at length the handling of cellular calls for motorists who }
{ are 'roaming' or out of their home region. This special issue of the }
{ Digest is devoted entirely to Mr. Gobel's report, which includes an up }
{ to date list of cities available. Patrick Townson] }
{{{ }}}
{{{ Enjoy. -chip }}}
>>A few cellular service providers now offer to let the roamer dial a
>>call-forwarding-like feature access code from a roaming area, and
>>have calls forwarded there, by the home system, at the roamer's
>>expense. This will probably become the standard.
>Can you please provide examples of carriers who have actually implemented
>this? I certainly hope this does not become the standard; it's not very
>good human engineering to require the cellular user to "do something" whenever
>crossing from one system to another, or when getting off a plane in another
>city or when returning to the home city.
>Unless special trunks are installed between the two systems,the call-forwarded
>call will probably have to be routed by the existing roamer access ports,which
>go off-hook even when you don't answer. If this "follow-me" forwarding becomes
>the standard, lots of people are going to be annoyed by charges for unknown
>incomplete calls. Can you imagine how annoyed you would be if you had set up
>follow-me forwarding, and then went into a poor service area. Someone starts
>persistently trying to call you on your home number, which is forwarded to you
>via the roamer port. They get charged for n calls to your number, even though
>you didn't answer (and they didn't know they were getting charged on a number
>with no answer), and you get charged for n long-distance calls from your home
>system to the roamer access port. And none of them completed calls.
A couple of years ago, the roamer ports used to not go off hook until
the cell phone answered, but the operating companies (not the cell companies)
bitched so much, that they were changed into going off hook before
entering the roamer number. I have recently talked to 3 cellular salesman,
and all of them said a call to a roamer port was "free" until the
cellular phone answered, which is incorrect. Two of them are not
selling cellular phones anymore.
The "follow-me" roaming was developed by GTE Mobilnet, Houston TX.
It is being licensed to others (Ameritec calls it "Fast Track").
GTE offers it for no monthly charge, ATT charges $5.00 or so
extra/month.
It isn't available everywhere yet, but it is spreading.
Here is the fall 88 status of Follow Me Roaming I got from GTE
MSA CITY STATE OPERATOR STATUS ACTIVATE/DEACTIVATE
249 Anniston AL BMI NOV88 *18/*19
41 Birmingham AL BMI NOV88 *18/*19
272 Gadsden AL BMI NOV88 *18/*19
120 Huntsville AL BMI NOV88 *18/*19
222 Tuscaloosa AL BMI NOV88 *18/*19
92 Little Rock AR ALLTEL JAN89 *18/*19
126 Salinas-Seaside CA GTEM UP *18/*19
126 Monterey CA GTEM UP *18/*19
27 San Jose CA GTEM UP *18/*19
7 San Francisco CA GTEM UP *18/*19
7 Oakland CA GTEM UP *18/*19
124 Santa Barbara CA GTEM UP *18/*19
175 Santa Cruz CA GTEM UP *18/*19
123 Santa Rosa CA GTEM UP *18/*19
123 Petaluma CA GTEM UP *18/*19
111 Vallejo-Napa CA GTEM UP *18/*19
111 Fairfield CA GTEM UP *18/*19
211 Bradenton FL GTEM UP *18/*19
137 Cocoa-Melbourne FL BMI UP *18/*19
137 Titusville FL BMI UP *18/*19
146 Daytona Beach FL BMI UP *18/*19
164 Ft. Meyers FL GTEM UP *18/*19
208 Ft. Pierce FL USCC OCT88 *18/*19
192 Gainsville FL ALLTEL JAN89 *18/*19
51 Jacksonville FL BMI UP *18/*19
114 Lakeland FL GTEM UP *18/*19
12 Miami FL BMI UP *18/*19
12 Ft. Lauderdale FL BMI UP *18/*19
245 Ocala FL ALLTEL JAN89 *18/*19
60 Orlando FL BMI UP *18/*19
167 Sarasota FL GTEM UP *18/*19
22 Tampa FL GTEM UP *18/*19
72 West Palm Beach FL BMI UP *18/*19
261 Albany GA ALLTEL FEB89 *18/*19
234 Athens GA BMI UP *18/*19
17 Atlanta GA BMI UP *18/*19
138 Macon GA BMI UP *18/*19
50 Honolulu HI GTEM DEC88 *18/*19
217 Anderson IN GTEM UP *18/*19
282 Bloomington IN GTEM UP *18/*19
223 Elkhart-Goshen IN UTS OCT88 *18/*19
96 Ft. Wayne IN GTEM UP *18/*19
28 Indianapolis IN GTEM UP *18/*19
271 Kokomo IN GTEM UP *18/*19
247 Lafayette IN GTEM UP *18/*19
236 Muncie IN GTEM UP *18/*19
129 South Bend IN UTS OCT88 *18/*19
185 Terre Haute IN GTEM UP *18/*19
116 Lexington KY BMI OCT88 *18/*19
116 Fayette KY BMI OCT88 *18/*19
37 Louisville KY BMI OCT88 *18/*19
80 Baton Rouge LA BMI OCT88 *18/*19
174 Lafayette LA BMI OCT88 *18/*19
29 New Orleans LA BMI OCT88 *18/*19
5 Detroit MI AMCI UP *18/*19
68 Flint MI AMCI UP *18/*19
278 Columbia MO USCC DEC88 *18/*19
163 Springfield MO ALLTEL FEB89 *18/*19
106 Jackson MS ALLTEL JAN89 *18/*19
61 Charlotte NC ALLTEL JAN89 *18/*19
52 Akron OH GTEM UP *18/*19
87 Canton OH GTEM UP *18/*19
23 Cincinnati OH AMCI UP *18/*19
16 Cleveland OH GTEM UP *18/*19
40 Dayton OH AMCI UP *18/*19
145 Hamilton OH AMCI UP *18/*19
145 Middletown OH AMCI UP *18/*19
158 Lima OH UTS OCT88 *18/*19
136 Lorain-Elyria OH GTEM UP *18/*19
231 Mansfield OH UTS OCT88 *18/*19
180 Springfield OH AMCI UP *18/*19
48 Toledo OH UTS OCT88 *18/*19
66 Youngstown OH UTS UP *18/*19
260 Lawton OK USCC NOV88 211/311
45 Oklahoma City OK SWBM OCT88 211/311
57 Tulsa OK USCC DEC88 211/311
30 Portland OR GTEM DEC88 *18/*19
148 Salem OR GTEM DEC88 *18/*19
130 Erie PA GTEM UP *18/*19
238 Sharon PA UTS UP *18/*19
95 Columbia SC BMI NOV88 *18/*19
264 Florence SC BMI NOV88 *18/*19
88 Chattanooga TN BMI UP *18/*19
209 Clarksville TN BMI UP *18/*19
209 Hopkinsville TN BMI UP *18/*19
36 Memphis TN BMI UP *18/*19
46 Nashville TN BMI UP *18/*19
220 Abilene TX SWBM UP 211/311
188 Amarillo TX SWBM UP 211/311
75 Austin TX GTEM UP 211/311
101 Beaumont TX GTEM UP 211/311
101 Port Arthur TX GTEM UP 211/311
162 Brownsville TX SWBM UP 211/311
162 Harlington TX SWBM UP 211/311
287 Bryan TX GTEM UP 211/311
287 College Station TX GTEM UP 211/311
112 Corpus Christi TX SWBM UP 211/311
9 Dallas TX SWBM UP 211/311
9 Ft. Worth TX SWBM UP 211/311
170 Galveston TX GTEM UP 211/311
170 Texas City TX GTEM UP 211/311
10 Houston TX GTEM UP 211/311
160 Killeen-Temple TX CENTEL OCT88 211/311
206 Longview TX UTS OCT88 211/311
206 Marshall TX UTS OCT88 211/311
161 Lubbock TX SWBM UP 211/311
128 McAllen TX SWBM UP 211/311
295 Midland TX SWBM UP 211/311
255 Odessa TX SWBM UP 211/311
294 San Angelo TX W.CENT.CELL OCT88 211/311
33 San Antonio TX SWBM UP 211/311
292 Sherman-Denison TX SWBM UP 211/311
240 Texarkana TX Century DEC88 211/311
237 Tyler TX UTS OCT88 211/311
300 Victoria TX GTEM UP 211/311
194 Waco TX CENTEL OCT88 211/311
233 Wichita Falls TX USCC OCT88 211/311
Note: The lack of L.A., Chicago, New York, SanDiego, etc.
How it works:
One has to the have call forwarding feature on his home service.
Upon entering the roaming area, the user dials "*18", gets a
series of beeps (Indy GTE, Cincinatti Ameritech), or a steady
800HZ tone (Miami, BellSouth), and hangs up (actually "END")
The roamer's MTSO (cellular switch) contacts the roamer's home
MTSO via dialup or GTE Telenet. A "temporary number" is setup
in the roamer's MTSO (not the roamer port #), and is passed back to
the home MTSO. The home MTSO sets call forwarding (*72+temp number)
to this temp number. The roaming MTSO calls the cell phone back in
5 to 10 mins to let him know everything has been setup.
Calls to the home cell phone number are transferred to the
remote temp number, and there is (currently) no charge if the roaming
phone does not answer or is out of range (wonder how long it will
be before the operating companies begin to bitch?)
Toll charges are handled by the home MTSO, show up as "FMR" (GTE)
on the bill and seem quite reasonable (.20/min from Indy to Miami
during peak). There is no "air time" charge in the home MTSO,
and the roamer gets hit with the standard local roaming charges.
To cancel, do a "*19", or return to home area and cancel
call forwarding (*720). One can roam in another area and
*18 there without *19'ing in the first area. Everything
times out at midnight (roamer's timezone) (was actually
12:10 AM or so) and cancels itself.. so another *18 is needed.
Some systems use 211/311 instead of *18/*19.
I think the whole system runs on a Compaq or similar PC.
Bugs and annoyances:
When FMR is canceled or times out, the original state of
the home call forwarding is not restored, it is cleared.
(I let GTE know my thoughts on that). I set my local cell
phone number to forward-on-no-answer to go to the voice mail
system (GTE Mobilnet has that also now). Call *9 or
call forward to *9 to get it. (no charge except airtime)
When the *18 comes in, calls go the roamer, but upon
leaving the roaming area, there is no fowarding to
voicemail to cover you until you enter the home area again.
It would be nice if the home MTSO had a landline number
(using your voice mail password) to let you set/clear
call forwarding (and voice mail) on your cell number
while out of town.
I got an airtime charge "incoming call" for the confirmation
call after doing a *18 at the Cincinatti Ameritech system.
It took over a day to get FMR working on my phone after a recent
trip (10/10/88) to Miami. Got the conf tone, but no callback.
Everything else was ok..Even 1+ dialing worked. (Cellmaps shows
this carrier, BellSouth Mobility, wireline, needs a credit
card for Roamers). FMR had only been up for a week then. Cust
service told me only 16 FMR's were possible in Miami! (B.S.??)
but still did not work when I *18'd right after midnight. Ended
up calling engineering at the Indy MTSO who
found the guy who wrote the code for FMR and had him talk to
chief engr at the Miami MTSO and things got fixed real quick then.
Turns out somebody had typo'd the "317" NPA in the MTSO.
After FMR worked, 1+ dialing didn't. Had to use 0+ instead
+ credit card. Cust svc said 1+ should never have worked.
I was billed normal DDD toll rates for the 1+ calls there.
Did notice the about 1/2 of the calls made to 317 NPA,
were listed as 305 (Miami) but NXX-YYYY were correct, and the
billing computer printed "Roamer call" instead of the correct
city where the NXX was not legal under 305! (but legal under 317)
As John says, it would be nice if the subscriber didn't have to do all
this..(like talking to Chief engineers, and finding the guy who
implemented FMR and getting him to beat on the roaming MTSO)
--ghg
Geo. Goble, Electrical Engineering, Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN 47907
ARPA: ghg@purdue.edu UUCP: {backbone}!pur-ee!ghg Phone: (317) 494-3545