Help PRL Update

[SirCheese]

What exactly is this? About 11 PM last night, my phone lights up, I look at it and there is a PRL update notification on the screen and it stated I needed to reset my phone. Anyone else get this and what exactly is this for?

 

[Warlock]

PRL = preferred roaming list. It is what it is.

 

[htcman724]

your prl is prefered roaming list. basically what it does is gives you better service.see cell companies are always adding new towers to there market and when the do you need to update the prl to get to use those towers.

 

[SirCheese]

Interesting, not sure if any new towers came up in the area recently

 

[htcman724]

Interesting, not sure if any new towers came up in the area recently

doesn't have to be a new tower there are other towers that the companys come to an agreement in sharing like sprint and verizon using say tmobile or cricket using att tower

 

[SirCheese]

doesn't have to be a new tower there are other towers that the companys come to an agreement in sharing like sprint and verizon using say tmobile or cricket using att tower

Well, maybe it was a tower already located in the area, maybe it will help my reception in the house

 

[jasonacg]

A little clarification...

A PRL update isn't required to make use of a new tower in your area. If Sprint puts a tower in your area, it would be a member of the same system ID as the rest of the Sprint towers in your market, and you can use it as soon as it goes on the air. The system ID is the magic number.

The PRL is intended to tell your phone how to prioritize use of Sprint and non-Sprint towers. When your phone scans the entire cellular/PCS spectrum for an available tower, preference is given first to Sprint, then to those carriers that Sprint has agreements with, then to non-preferred CDMA carriers, if any, until the phone runs out of carriers to choose from in a given market.

For example, the Sprint system in my market, has a system ID of 05116, and Verizon is 00042. When my phone scans for service, it will link to a tower having an ID of 5116. If none can be found, it will go to a 42 tower. If that fails, Plan C might be a Metro PCS tower, if Metro permits roaming on its towers. Plan D would probably be a "No Service" indicator, having run out of CDMA options in this market. Where you live, your list will vary, because your carriers may differ from those available here.

The PRL contains this data for all of North America, and perhaps the (very) few countries around the world that offer CDMA. So wherever you go, you phone knows what carriers to favor, to give you the best available rate and most available features, when you're out of town.

If you are on a non-Sprint tower, the phone will occasionally re-scan, to see if a tower with higher priority is now available. If one is found, the phone will join that tower.

Do you *need* to update your PRL regularly? No, not really, unless you travel a lot. Will it help at home? Probably not...if the tower isn't there, there's not much that will help. Will it hurt to update? If you've got some free time on your hands, no.

Hope this clears some things up.