Help! Roaming in Chicago Transit Tunnels no Longer Works for Sprint

[jminor]

HELP. My phone will not work when roaming. The symbol is visible, good signal, but I get message "LB2 80". I found a thread that may help someone understand what may(?) be happening. Sorry for the long post, but I'm trying to give as much info as possible.
"Yes, we used to have roaming on US Cellular in the Blue Line tunnels (voice + 1x data). Yes, it stopped working a few days after VZW turned on its service in September. Yes, the phone shows there's a signal but you get the LB280 message if you dial. SMS and data don't work anymore either.

The current PRLs will make your phone roam onto USC in preference to roaming onto VZW. So it will lock onto the USC signal and not use the VZW signal. But when you try to make a call, it appears that USC isn't allowing it to be connected from the subway system. Oddly enough, when the train comes out of the tunnel, my phone will stay roamed onto USC for quite a while and I can make calls on USC above ground, but no t below. It's the same USC SID, but it won't connect below ground and it will connect above ground.

I don't think the VZW signal makes a difference because VZW is a lower priority in the PRL than USC in Chicago. A Sprint phone shouldn't roam onto VZW unless the USC signal is dead.

My suspicion is that when VZW got into the subway, somebody at USC looked at it and decided that they're paying the CTA money to have their antennas in the subways and that Sprint could install its own antennas if it wanted service. I suspect USC has deliberately decided to disallow roaming on the underground systems, probably with the exception of 911 calls (I hope).

FWIW, I have an old Ampd phone on PagePlus (a VZW MVNO) and it works in the subway on VZW.
Do any of the Guru's here have any idea how to combat this issue. Thanks for the great job.

[frazell]

Sounds like a PRL update is needed as some roaming agreements have changed over...

US Cell... couldn't drop Sprint without some change to their previous roaming agreement or cancellation to that effect.

[jminor]

thanks for responding. Sounds reasonable. at least I understand more about what needs changing.

[lda167]

I have the same problem on the CTA trains in Chicago. They go underground every few stops so it's getting annoying to be on the phone while on the train. To be honest, I thought it was just the Windows 6.1 update that I installed that was causing the problem. A few of my other buddies upgraded at the same time as me and found the same problems.

Maybe if there's someone out there using Windows 6.0 and lives in Chicago, they can help shed some light on the roaming problem in the tunnels..(jminor, what operating system are you using?

[hippity.hoppity]

Not sure why the OP hasn't tested the phone when roaming in a different location. Force roaming somewhere else and test. If it still gives the error message, call Sprint and get an HLR reload done.

[jminor]

I'm using the kitchen prior to 924 that has Windows 6.1

[jminor]

I tried roaming in Washington DC Metro (underground public transport) and I got the message "Verizon does not authenticate my phone". My wife's non-windows phone worked fine. This would make me believe this is a Windows 6.1 PPC Geeks Kitchen problem. I called Sprint before my visit to Washington and was told my phone would under go everything necessary to make it work while roaming. That obviously did not work. I hope this this leads some more understanding to help fix this issue. Thanks again

[hippity.hoppity]

Again, read post #5.

[jminor]

Sprint already did what was called an IHLR to get it going but that obviously did not work. How do I make my phone roam? I did not see that option under settings/phone/ Services.

[hippity.hoppity]

You have to enable the roaming option by doing a registry edit. If they did the HLR reload and you still get the generic message when roaming, it can't be the phone.

Remember that everytime you flash a new ROM, you have to call Sprint and have them do the HLR reload in order to be able to roam. Not sure if it's like that on all phones, but I'm 100% positive about the Mogul. If you get a good rep, it only takes about a minute to do.