Force Roaming?

[leafsf]

Forced roaming has been FOUND and much talked about. The process below can be used to forced roam virtually any Sprint phones. This is NOT my idea, but someone else's. So, I can't take the credit (or the blame) should it work or not work for you. See link for actual posting:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...6&postcount=18

But here is a repost of KERKEDAGAIN's discovery at xda-developers forum:

*****
Alright folks..I think i may have stumbled upon a workaround to force roaming!!

Procedure:
1. Download and install the diagnostics drivers for the Hero
2. Download the latest version of QPST (i'm using 2.7 build 323)
3. On your phone make sure USB debugging is turned on and push ##3424# in your phone keypad
4. Plug your phone in via USB and install the diagnostics drivers when prompted
5. If you've installed the drivers correctly, you should be able to go to Device Manager in control panel and see it registered as a COM port/USB diagnostic device
6. Next open QPST Service Programming>Connection>New. You should see your phone/COM port and you obviously choose that.
7. Choose "Read from phone" in the lower left hand of the window, after which you'll be prompted for your service programming code/MSL (Google your way to find it if you don't already have it)
8. Whence you have entered that code you'll see your phone info around
9. Go to the System tab (5th tab in my setup)
10. NOW..what worked for me was this setup: Preferred Mode: Digital Only (upon further investigation, apparently "Automatic" works as well) Band Preference: A Only (as a side note B Only worked for me as well) Roam Preference: Automatic
11. Press Write to Phone
12. Reboot your phone

That should do it!! If alls done right you should see the familiar Roam triangle over your service bars! Hope it works fer ya..to change back from roaming only change everything back to Automatic.

*DISCLAIMER*: I've been messing around with my phone's service programming quite a bit so this may only work for me cuz of some erroneous change I made to the internals. Also I've only tried this in an area that I know I can get signal at, so whether it is TRULY roaming, I don't know. All I do know is that it says Roaming in my phone's Status
****

It worked for me, on both my Samsung Instinct and my HTC Hero phones. Good luck!

[leafsf]

ADDITIONAL NOTE: After you press "Write to Phone" in step 11, you may get an error that says:

NV_UE_IMEI_I NV_READONLY_S

This is an extraneous error as the change to NV_UE_IMEI_I is not needed to put the phone into forced roaming mode.

[smalk]

Is this something that can be put into a zip or something that can be flashed?

[RavenTBK]

I wanted to bump this thread, as I have been searching for the same thing for some time now. After scouring through the code for Cupcake, there is no option to force roaming anywhere within the code. The user above claiming to make it work is BS, as he has posted the exact same text on 5 other forums, offering no proof, only requesting people send him money.

Anywho, I am doing the same thing, posting this info on various forums to get more hits to bump it up higher on the list. I have created an Enhancement Request on Google Code requesting such an option be integrated into the OS.

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=7603

I actually need some more people to "star" the request to bump it higher up on the list. If being able to force roaming is something you'd use even on a next-to-nothing basis, this is something you should look at and click the star.

Thx..

[leafsf]

Please download the QPST and HTC HERO Diag drivers and try it out. I tried KERKEDAGAIN's method and it really works! Post a response if you need help.

I can say KERKEDAGAIN's method isn't BS. I've done this for both my Samsung Instinct and HTC Hero.

Also, while you're doing this to force the roam, you can also reset your MSL to 000000. This would allow you to use your Sprint phone on other CDMA's network like Verizon, PagePlus, etc.

Money talks... I've sold two Sprint roaming and MSL unlock phones on Ebay and made extra $$.

Good luck!

[wudstock54]

Works on both my Hero and Moment as well.

[Lyvewire]

Does anyone know if this hack works for the Evo 4G? There's a lot of us that want to force roaming

[MrGreg]

Originally Posted by Lyvewire

Does anyone know if this hack works for the Evo 4G? There's a lot of us that want to force roaming

There's an app on the market called "Roam Control". It allows you to put your phone in a roam only mode, like you could with the palm and winmo phones. Requires root.

Roam Control - Android app on AppBrain