Help Can't call numbers with +1 in front

[fdanna]

Hi, this is my first MetroPCS and first Android phone so I'm hoping that someone can shed some light on this problem.

All my numbers are formatted in my phone book as +Country code. So all US numbers are +1, Italy is +39, UK +44, etc. This has worked fine for me on other carriers and other phones, but on this phone, even though I'm already in the US, it tacks on the 011 to whatever (US) number I select from the phonebook.

What I'm not sure is if this is a quirk in the dialer or something that metropcs's network doesn't know what to do with.

Could someone verify that they get the same result on their phone if they dial a US number with +1-area code-number? It's basically a "call cannot be completed as dialed" message. I'm not about to go through all my contacts and modify them so this would really suck for me.

UPDATE:

I called LG and they told me the phone is working as designed. I went to the MetroPCS store and after explaining myself 3 or 4 times, to 3 or 4 different people, they couldn't help me either. I did, however confirm that on all their other phones (or at least on blackberry and samsung phones) dialing with +1 in front doesn't cause issues and the phone number (e.g. +1-617-555-1212) will connect without problems. This means the problem is definitely with the LG dialer. It's lazy programming, actually.

Just to put this in perspective; imagine that your google account syncs with two android phones. One phone is for the US and one is for Overseas. If you do not have the +1 in front of your number, it won't dial properly from overseas if and if you do then your US phon won't dial properly here.

Anyway, I had to return the phone. I guess I'll wait to see what happens.

 

[mkennedy2000]

Well it's a mistake to expect the MetroPCS customer experience to resemble "Customer Service" or "Customer Care" - generally it's just an experience.
FWIW, this IS kind of a complex scenario.
I'm a (free) G apps user, I'm using a $220 phone on a $50 plan, as opposed to A) Buying\installing Outlook B) Buying a B'berry data plan C) Subscribing to an Exchange host ($10-15\mo\user, I think) and D) Using a $500 or $600 WinMob\Palm\B'berrry device.
I think it took about 6 hours to get exchange up and running, syncing properly and so on - absolutely a non trivial task.
So far, I spent 5 minutes setting a g apps mail account and all my contacts, emails and calenders are synced, with an email push. This leaves me quite a few hours to deal with dialing and other issues.
Every time I change PIMs I have to massage my data - either fields change, sorts change, something changes. B'berry, Palm, OTA, wired, syncing is always an effort and so far Android rocks!
I have identified the same problem and may try getting through to Metro second tier support by phone. The store personnel are very hit or miss.
I talked to LG who indicate that Android 2.3 can probably be installed on this phone, although not "officially". They also indicated that the 10 digit dialing is Metro, and that Metro have a problem with +1. I'm not sure how that crept into my database, I think it must be an Outlook thing? I'm strictly US and I don't think I've ever manually entered a + sign as part of a number.
I'm also new to Android, so it's tough knowing where the lines are - Google are free all over the place so don't offer support, it's open source so who knows who wrote what (ie: is the dialer LG, Google, Metro).
Seems that if it's a Metro thing a root or an upgrade might do it? Or do all Android phones\dialers have this problem?

Hi, this is my first MetroPCS and first Android phone so I'm hoping that someone can shed some light on this problem.

All my numbers are formatted in my phone book as +Country code. So all US numbers are +1, Italy is +39, UK +44, etc. This has worked fine for me on other carriers and other phones, but on this phone, even though I'm already in the US, it tacks on the 011 to whatever (US) number I select from the phonebook.

What I'm not sure is if this is a quirk in the dialer or something that metropcs's network doesn't know what to do with.

Could someone verify that they get the same result on their phone if they dial a US number with +1-area code-number? It's basically a "call cannot be completed as dialed" message. I'm not about to go through all my contacts and modify them so this would really suck for me.

UPDATE:

I called LG and they told me the phone is working as designed. I went to the MetroPCS store and after explaining myself 3 or 4 times, to 3 or 4 different people, they couldn't help me either. I did, however confirm that on all their other phones (or at least on blackberry and samsung phones) dialing with +1 in front doesn't cause issues and the phone number (e.g. +1-617-555-1212) will connect without problems. This means the problem is definitely with the LG dialer. It's lazy programming, actually.

Just to put this in perspective; imagine that your google account syncs with two android phones. One phone is for the US and one is for Overseas. If you do not have the +1 in front of your number, it won't dial properly from overseas if and if you do then your US phon won't dial properly here.

Anyway, I had to return the phone. I guess I'll wait to see what happens.

 

[mkennedy2000]

Well it's a mistake to expect the MetroPCS customer experience to resemble "Customer Service" or "Customer Care" - generally it's just an experience.
FWIW, this IS kind of a complex scenario.
I'm a (free) G apps user, I'm using a $220 phone on a $50 plan, as opposed to A) Buying\installing Outlook B) Buying a B'berry data plan C) Subscribing to an Exchange host ($10-15\mo\user, I think).
I think it took about 6 hours to get exchange up and running, syncing properly and so on - absolutely a non trivial task.
So far, I spent 5 minutes setting a g apps mail account and all my contacts, emails and calenders are synced, with an email push. This leaves me quite a few hours to deal with dialing and other issues.
Every time I change PIMs I have to massage my data - either fields change, sorts change, something changes. B'berry, Palm, OTA, wired, syncing is always an effort and so far Android rocks!
I have identified the same problem and may try getting through to Metro second tier support by phone. The store personnel are very hit or miss.
I talked to LG who indicate that Android 2.3 can probably be installed on this phone, although not "officially". They also indicated that the 10 digit dialing is Metro, and that Metro have a problem with +1. I'm not sure how that crept into my database, I think it must be an Outlook thing? I'm strictly US and I don't think I've ever manually entered a + sign as part of a number.
I'm also new to Android, so it's tough knowing where the lines are - Google are free all over the place so don't offer support, it's open source so who knows who wrote what (ie: is the dialer LG, Google, Metro).
Seems that if it's a Metro thing a root or an upgrade might do it? Or do all Android phones\dialers have this problem?

Hi, this is my first MetroPCS and first Android phone so I'm hoping that someone can shed some light on this problem.

All my numbers are formatted in my phone book as +Country code. So all US numbers are +1, Italy is +39, UK +44, etc. This has worked fine for me on other carriers and other phones, but on this phone, even though I'm already in the US, it tacks on the 011 to whatever (US) number I select from the phonebook.

What I'm not sure is if this is a quirk in the dialer or something that metropcs's network doesn't know what to do with.

Could someone verify that they get the same result on their phone if they dial a US number with +1-area code-number? It's basically a "call cannot be completed as dialed" message. I'm not about to go through all my contacts and modify them so this would really suck for me.

UPDATE:

I called LG and they told me the phone is working as designed. I went to the MetroPCS store and after explaining myself 3 or 4 times, to 3 or 4 different people, they couldn't help me either. I did, however confirm that on all their other phones (or at least on blackberry and samsung phones) dialing with +1 in front doesn't cause issues and the phone number (e.g. +1-617-555-1212) will connect without problems. This means the problem is definitely with the LG dialer. It's lazy programming, actually.

Just to put this in perspective; imagine that your google account syncs with two android phones. One phone is for the US and one is for Overseas. If you do not have the +1 in front of your number, it won't dial properly from overseas if and if you do then your US phon won't dial properly here.

Anyway, I had to return the phone. I guess I'll wait to see what happens.

 

[focused313]

I have the same issue with +1 on this phone. My caliber (also with metro) didn't have the same issue because it simply dialed by the google voice routed # instead of the actual person. I found it easiest to just go into google voice and take out the +1 in the contacts. the number will still function the same.

 

[mkennedy2000]

I ran a quick search for contacts with the +1 format - I have 288 contacts, many of whom have 2 or 3 phone numbers. If I don't make a single error and get really proficient, I still see this taking 2 hours so it's worth a small investment in time.
If I can find search and replace function in google I'm all set. As an alternate I may try exporting my database to excel and doing the search\replace there.
I have gotten the voice dialer to work, I got very excited as I've always liked voice dialing, but I haven't been able to get it to work again. I really think it dialed a +1 number so I 'm gong to try to understand the relationship between google apps contacts, google voice (where I have a number), android contacts and Metro. Another avenue might be my VOIP, ring central. I'll DL thier app, see if I can get a good result there.
I'm probably going to get my wife an android phone - either I'll get her the Metro Huawei, which looks pretty nice OR I'll wait tile Metro release a 4g Android next year, give her the Optimus and get the 4G.
Does anyone have any thoughts as to whether the issue is Android, Metro or LG?

I have the same issue with +1 on this phone. My caliber (also with metro) didn't have the same issue because it simply dialed by the google voice routed # instead of the actual person. I found it easiest to just go into google voice and take out the +1 in the contacts. the number will still function the same.

 

[bbfugitive]

The +1 most likely was added for you courtesy of Microsoft via Outlook. Normally this is not a problem and is necessary for everyone who uses tapi dialing in Outlook. There are probably many ways to get the +1 out of the address book so you don't confuse Metropcs. I sync my contacts to exchange server which is synced with a local copy of address book.

I exported my contacts to csv and did a find/replace to remove all instances of +1. I cleared out the local contacts and imported the file back in. I sync'd the local copy with exchange by using the update folder button in outlook 2010. Then I told android to manually sync with my exchange account.

It takes about 5 minutes.

Hope this helps.

 

[endo0005]

I wonder if your problem is similar to what I experienced when using voice dial (e.g., "Call [Restaurant name] in [city name]"), selecting the phone number (search result notably has +1 country code [US] in front of area code and phone number), and then getting a "call cannot be completed as dialed" error.

My solution was to go to settings (from home page, hit menu key), call settings, select assisted dialing, ensure assisting dialing status is checked ON and that current country and reference country are your home country [presumably USA].

Hope this helps.