Why can't I stop roaming?

[Ghyslain Rieux]

Okay, I had to sign-up to this forum just to get an answer to this question because the question has never been asked!

I have a Nexus 6 running 5.1

My carrier is Wind Mobile that works with limited, usually city-wide "zones". When I leave their zones, I am roaming.

I am usually always in a Wind zone (Wz), but have to visit relatives that are outside said zone.

When I return to the Wz, my phone takes forever to go back to it. Sometimes I get back home and still see that infuriating little "R" next to my signal status indicator. Meaning I've been back in a Wz for 30+ minutes and my phone still hasn't switched back.

To manually go back to my home network requires minutes of my phone "searching" for networks, and then more minutes of "registering" on the the network I choose.

I remember accidentally tapping "Choose Automatically" once while in a Wz and the phone actually chose to roam instead! Figure that one out.

As you can imagine, I can't fiddle around in menus while driving to manually switch back to my home network.
But I could very well call or receive calls thanks to the wonderful hands-free Bluetooth connection to my car.

My question is this:
How can I "lock" my phone to my home network to prevent it from roaming and only roam when I prompt it to?

I called Wind Mobile about this and they said they could disable roaming, but that option is not acceptable since it doesn't leave me the choice to roam if I wanted to.

I contacted Motorola about it and the only thing they talked to me about was the stupid Data Roaming switch which I already know about.

Airplane mode is not a reasonable solution because I don't want to turn my phone on/off airplane mode every time I exit/enter a Wz.

No app in the app store does this except with data through the use of the Data Roaming switch.

I remember having an OLD OLD OLD Sony Walkman phone that would warn me when roaming and actually ask my permission to roam. Back in those days, I did not have a data plan, so this warning was strictly about voice and text.

With today's "Smart" phones and this being Android's "fifth" iteration, I refuse to believe that the option is not in here somewhere.

I have Googled the f*** out of this problem and the only thing that turns up is the stupid "Data Roaming" switch which, if I could, I would punch in the face.

If someone could help me with this problem, or at least re-assure me that this isn't an unrealistic expectation to have, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thank you!

 

[enufwireless]

I have the exact same phone on the same network with the same problem.
I cannot use a phone that will register within Canada on a different network.
Unwilling to pay domestic roaming charges when the handset loses Wind coverage.

I just pulled my first android handset out of the box.
If it cannot be locked to Wind (specifically, force it NOT to register on any other network), then I will have to send this handset back to Motorola ASAP.

"Turn off data roaming" is not an adequate answer to this problem.
Android needs to be capable of locking network registration to a user defined network like every other GSM/UMTS/LTE handset on the market.
If it cannot, then there is no use for Android.

Does anyone have an answer for this?

 

[gone down south]

It sounds like Wind should be providing some sort of app support for this, since that's an extremely uncommon network setup.

 

[enufwireless]

This isn't a feature that would be supported by an app.

It is a feature of the radio stack interface in the OS itself.

This is what happens when a cellphone OS is designed by software programmers instead of engineers.
It is a significant oversight in design implementation. This is my first impression of Android and it is not good.
It is bad enough that Google refuses to implement adhoc Wifi (no, their proprietary point-to-point is not adequate)

I really don't want to send this handset back to Motorola but if I can't come up with a way to lock NETWORK REGISTRATION (NOT merely data roaming) to a user-selected network, then that is exactly where it is going. No small disappointment. Hopefully I can take Motorola's 14-day return policy at their word.

 

[enufwireless]

One last Android release pushed on to my phone last night solved the error I got when doing a network search.
Now it works.
Relief.

 

[Mooncatt]

That's a problem similar to others I've seen using secondary/tertiary carriers. The big name carriers typically don't have these issues, but going with carriers that just lease tower bandwidth from other carriers and have odd ball network setups within the phone seem to be prone to connection issues.