Cellphone - Down by the river...

**GPCharles** · December-07-16, 12:14 PM

My cell phone is on AT&T. Whenever I am near the river or the lake, it switches to Rodgers in Canada, which is an international roam for me. When I get the bill and I complain AT&T always deletes the charges but it has become a monthly PIA.

Anyone on another service have this problem?

**Johnnny5** · December-07-16, 12:26 PM

Originally Posted by GPCharles

My cell phone is on AT&T. Whenever I am near the river or the lake, it switches to Rodgers in Canada, which is an international roam for me. When I get the bill and I complain AT&T always deletes the charges but it has become a monthly PIA.

Anyone on another service have this problem?

I have Verizon and this happens to me constantly while fishing the St. Clair River around Harsen's Island [[Even when I'm well into American waters). Normally there are few if any extra charges, but I believe I have had them remove charges in the past [[That may have been with T-Mobile as I had the same issue with them as well).

**ndavies** · December-07-16, 12:30 PM

Sprint switches to Rogers along the Detroit river and Lake Erie. But they have free Canadian roaming so no increased bill.

**drjeff** · December-07-16, 12:32 PM

I have the same problem sitting in my office in midtown sometimes. You can turn off international roaming to prevent this from happening.

**professorscott** · December-07-16, 12:33 PM

Originally Posted by GPCharles

My cell phone is on AT&T. Whenever I am near the river or the lake, it switches to Rodgers in Canada, which is an international roam for me. When I get the bill and I complain AT&T always deletes the charges but it has become a monthly PIA.

Anyone on another service have this problem?

I don't know if this still works, but back in the day, if I turned off "roaming" any time I was going to be perilously close to Canada, it prevented what you describe.

**EastsideAl** · December-07-16, 01:41 PM

Originally Posted by GPCharles

My cell phone is on AT&T. Whenever I am near the river or the lake, it switches to Rodgers in Canada, which is an international roam for me. When I get the bill and I complain AT&T always deletes the charges but it has become a monthly PIA.

Anyone on another service have this problem?

Try living on the river. In the apartments south of Jefferson this is a constant problem, and it often depends on nothing more than which way the wind is blowing. In my dad's place he very often receives the U.S. carrier signal in the bedroom, but the phone switches over to a Canadian carrier in the living room.

Oddly, the Canadian carrier has a somewhat stronger and more reliable signal [[although no signal is really very reliable down there). The obvious solution has been to put him on a carrier and a plan that doesn't charge roaming for Canada. But it can be an unpleasant surprise for guests.

Before the advent of these plans, we used to get bills with Canadian roaming charges on them and had to often call to have it taken off. It was always fun trying to explain to call center people out in the middle of the country [[or in India) that, no, he hadn't gone to Canada, and, yes, Detroit is right on the border, and Canada is plainly visible from the city.

**paulj313** · December-07-16, 01:51 PM

I have AT&T as well and the same thing happens to me. The strange part is, when I'm on the river in Windsor, I pick up my American AT&T signal.

**EastsideAl** · December-07-16, 02:05 PM

Originally Posted by paulj313

I have AT&T as well and the same thing happens to me. The strange part is, when I'm on the river in Windsor, I pick up my American AT&T signal.

This is true. When I was staying with relatives over in Canada last summer, a drive near the border reliably got me a U.S. signal for my pre-GSM old iphone 4. [[Canada has now completely shut down its old CDMA network, so those phones will no longer work over there.)

**dtowncitylover** · December-07-16, 04:01 PM

This is why I hate going to events at the GP War Memorial.

**RO_Resident** · December-07-16, 08:21 PM

Sprint--check
Verizon--check
T-Mobile--check

They all get Rogers' towers if you forget to turn off roaming.

At least T-Mobil includes Canada and Mexico as part of its basic service.

**Zacha341** · December-07-16, 08:32 PM

How? Just go to Data by turning of WIFI right. No that does not do it for calls...... Long day and week already. My basic techno skills have left me.......

Originally Posted by drjeff

I have the same problem sitting in my office in midtown sometimes. You can turn off international roaming to prevent this from happening.

**courtney** · December-08-16, 01:34 AM

We went to a homeschool event at Dossin in mid November and were reminded several times at the start to turn off phones or turn off roaming because it was such a common issue.

If you live where this happens often, I'd recommend just turning off roaming on your phone completely. If you travel out of the area and can't get a decent signal on your carrier, you can turn it back on.

Originally Posted by Zacha341

How? Just go to Data by turning of WIFI right. No that does not do it for calls...... Long day and week already. My basic techno skills have left me.......

What type of phone do you have? If you google the model number along with roaming, usually one of the results will include how to disable all roaming, not just data.

**Zacha341** · December-08-16, 02:29 AM

^^^ AT&T, Iphone 5

**courtney** · December-08-16, 10:55 AM

Originally Posted by Zacha341

^^^ AT&T, Iphone 5

It looks like for AT&T, you'd have to call them to turn off international voice roaming, which is stupid. It can be turned off on Verizon on the 5 through settings, but it looks like that's not an option through AT&T.

Still might be worth it, especially if you won't legitimately need international roaming and you'd prefer not to have to call to complain every time you get dinged on your bill when it happens.

**aoife** · December-08-16, 02:09 PM

Originally Posted by GPCharles

My cell phone is on AT&T. Whenever I am near the river or the lake, it switches to Rodgers in Canada, which is an international roam for me. When I get the bill and I complain AT&T always deletes the charges but it has become a monthly PIA.

Anyone on another service have this problem?

I have AT&T and that same issue when I go to Belle Isle or too far out on the pier at Pier Park. An easy is to fix it is call up AT&T, ask for the retentions department and ask to be placed on the Roam North America package. It is free and gives you unlimited talk & text in Canada and something like 1 GB of data. You have to go through retentions though, since normal sales associates don't seem to know about it. It is seriously great--especially if you travel to Canada frequently.

**casscorridor** · December-08-16, 03:45 PM

Here is an easy solution [[that will likely never happen): abolish mobile roaming charges. This was recently done in the European Union. But there is much more incentive there, as 28 countries are interacting with one another in close proximity, with free movement of goods, services, capital and people. We don't have this relationship with Canada even though we have more in common than many European countries do with each other. Just a thought.

**Lowell** · December-08-16, 04:10 PM

Been a problem for us handball players on Belle Isle for years.

A few times each summer I get the ATT warning that I will be charge $15 a meg [what a rip off! that must make them millions from unaware users]. I have been hit on my bill and likewise had to waste my time getting it deleted.

There needs to be a five mile free zone on each side of the border, easy to do now with geolocation. If one goes beyond that they can get warned, stung and billed.

**bust** · December-08-16, 07:23 PM

This happens to me with T-Mobile in Grosse Pointe. I'm guessing Canada allows higher powered cell site antennae. Many countries do.

**EastsideAl** · December-09-16, 02:12 PM

Originally Posted by bust

I'm guessing Canada allows higher powered cell site antennae. Many countries do.

Which would explain why the Canadian signal is often stronger south of Jefferson than any of the U.S. ones.

**ndavies** · December-09-16, 03:06 PM

It's not about the strength of the towers. They are all more than powerful enough. The issue is the location of the towers and the tiny amount of transmitting power in your phone.

More phones in a region require more towers. Think circles laid out on a map. A tower can only handle so many simultaneous calls. So they put more towers in places with more cell phones. If you are 1/2 way between 2 American towers, but closer to a Canadian tower, the Canadian tower will pick up your phones tiny transmitter.

It's also about the tall buildings in Downtown. They can interfere with the local towers by blocking your phones signal or causing multipath signals[[think signal echoing off buildings causing the same signal to arrive multiple times). This causes you to only see the Canadian towers.