Did you buy the phone from the vendor? then its most likely locked. I purchased a Pixel 8 pro and its unlocked, when the home Verizon tower went down, it will search and get onto something, the way I understand it, they all have roaming agreements, but if its locked the goal is to be on their tower unless there is NOTHING else available. As long as you have JUST A WEE BIT of Verizon, it will stay on Verizon.
Think, the same thing happens when I goto Canada or EU, it will roam onto another network cause there is no Verizon towers out there. A simple phone call sure, massive amounts of data/hot spotting, not so much. When I went to the EU, I have to pay 5 bucks a day for international roaming, and that includes up to 1gig of ultra fast data, after that, it is painfully slow. Kinda the same thing within the US. But if you purchased a ATT iphone or a Verizon Droid, it SHOULD, roam a bit, when there is NOTHING with the vendors signal, but don't expect more than texting and voice calls. Dennis Burgess Mikrotik : Trainer, Network Associate, Routing Engineer, Wireless Engineer, Traffic Control Engineer, Inter-Networking Engineer, Security Engineer, Enterprise Wireless Engineer Hurricane Electric: IPv6 Sage Level Cambium: ePMP Author of "Learn RouterOS- Second Edition” Link Technologies, Inc -- Mikrotik & WISP Support Services Office: 314-735-0270 Website: http://www.linktechs.net<http://www.linktechs.net/> Create Wireless Coverage’s with www.towercoverage.com <https://mail.linktechs.net/owa/redir.aspx?C=AWq0kPmLomFxbshE65wWiGsm9JYjRq7NfAx66HZMGnN2I3lAPi_UCA..&URL=mailto%3admburgess%40linktechs.net> ________________________________ From: AF <[email protected]> on behalf of Adam Moffett <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2025 2:17 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' Subject: Re: [AFMUG] mobile and 5G Home Internet when a cell tower is offline Some, like Tracphone, can ride multiple networks. I have always assumed that the underlying network is going to prioritize its own customers over the third parties roaming on their system. That's an assumption, but if I'm paying a premium for Verizon I'd actually be more upset if they didn't give me priority over the Cricket wireless guy paying $19.99/month. So I know you could get a phone that would give you hotspot data on multiple networks, but I'd assume it sucks a little bit. I have no empirical testing of this. Maybe Consumer Reports has something. Are they still around? -Adam ________________________________ From: AF <[email protected]> on behalf of Ken Hohhof <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2025 2:56 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] mobile and 5G Home Internet when a cell tower is offline Well, that kinda sucks. If you’re a prepper, do you need to have 3 cellphones then? From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2025 1:43 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] mobile and 5G Home Internet when a cell tower is offline No your Vz phone would not roam to a T-Mobile or AT&T tower. Now that they are not CDMA voice 3G it is theoretically possible but not their business model. Then there is the matter of frequency / bands. Think “in network” all the time. From: AF <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2025 2:37 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: [AFMUG] mobile and 5G Home Internet when a celltower is offline Who here knows more than I do about how cellular networks work during a celltower outage? Would I be correct to assume that if, for example, a Verizon tower is offline, your mobile phone would connect to another nearby Verizon tower? And that you could not only make voice calls and send text messages, but also use your phone as a hotspot for Internet? And that if there was no other Verizon tower in range, your phone would roam to a T-Mobile or AT&T tower? And in that case, could you still use the hotspot feature? Now, what about Home Internet service? Would I be correct to assume no roaming and probably not even another Verizon tower? If your designated tower is down, no home Internet? One last question, if the tower has power and all the electronics is running but the backhaul to the tower is down (like a fiber cut), do phones still connect to the tower but have no service? Or will they move to another tower?
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