I have a VM Motorola Triumph and get pretty good coverage in my area of SE Iowa. My buddies and i always take a fishing trip every May to a lake about 2 hours away. We get a huge cabin and have a great time while we are there. But my coverage isn't the greatest when we are there.
My phone will work great until about 10 miles from the lake and then the service is gone. My friends that are along on the trip have different carriers with their phones and they all have coverage.
Am i doomed to have no coverage at all on this trip, or is there something i can do to make it happen? I'm pretty much a noob at this stuff so if anyone has any suggestions, i would love to hear them. Is there any way i can get my phone to use one of their towers? Or is it not that simple?
VM uses Sprint towers; roaming is your only option.
Chances are your friends have different non-compatible carriers. Sprint uses CDMA/LTE/Wimax whereas other carriers use GSM/UMTS/HSPA and such: different radios. You cannot hop on a GSM network when your phone has a CDMA radio.
I read somewhere that not all LTE networks are compatible too, but I cannot confirm.
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Unfortunately, Virgin has terrible coverage in the Central part of the US -- which seems a bit strange since Sprint (who owns Virgin, and whose towers Virgin uses) HQ is in Kansas City. I'd suggest, if you want to stay Prepaid, you need to move to a carrier such as T-Mobile Monthly or Straight Talk.
Virgin Mobile coverage
