dunno but i got roaming service w/data on MIUI 11.19 in Charles Town WV and in Potomac MD, not sure what that means either....... (very seldom does this happen though.)

 

Could you place a call normally when the roaming indicator was on?

 

didn't try, just used data, but i will when i get it again, ill be in Potomac tomorrow

 

I am guessing since VM has stated that they do not roam, that there is some sort of error making your phone think it is roaming, when it is actually on Virgin's network. I could be totally wrong, as that is just a guess.

 

Could be. I could also be wrong, but Virgin Mobile doesn't have roaming so for you too have roaming on a Virgin Mobile phone would be a feat (one that we all would like to replicate!!). I know it has been stated by the devs that CM7 and MIUI don't make any changes like that to the radio code so It wouldn't be your ROM.

 

Mine does this all the time it happens right after it boots before it notices any signal (0-1 bars at my house) then goes away the second it finds any like 10 - 15 seconds later.

 

I thought I read that you were on wifi, not data?

 

he did say that... lol people these days!

 

roaming.....hmmmmm.......FREE MINUTES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

If you saw DIGITAL ROAM, bars and the triangle it meant you were connected to and authenticated with a tower that (1) was permitted in the PRL and (2) did not match Virgin's carrier ID.

That is, you were roaming.

This assumes you had both the roam triangle and bars. When the phone boots it can show "Digital Roam" briefly if it sees a Verizon (or other) CDMA tower when it's trying to authenticate. But you should not see the roam triangle as that doesn't show up unless you have authenticated against the tower.

I know intimately how the code figures this out and the paths it takes as I had to get into the meat of it while getting the RIL running. Trust me on this -- if you got that you were on a tower that had a different carrier ID than Virgin's, and you were authenticated against it and if you were running data then you definitely had a valid connection.

Note that it's entirely possible if you load a non-default PRL to authenticate against some other carrier's tower if there are no Sprint towers (or only 4g WiMax towers that the radio can't talk to) within range. But in that case you can't run data (the data indicator will NOT come up) nor can you make calls - if you try to make a call you'll either get an intercept or be asked for a credit card number. Data will not come up without being authenticated -- period.

If you have a PC nearby next time with adb on it (or just use the terminal in CM7) you can logcat the device when it is doing this and it will occasionally spit out the radio status information in the logcat -- it should tell you what it "sees."

I suspect that you were in an area where Virgin/Sprint had, for whatever reason (probably their screwup) allowed your phone to validate against a Verizon tower!

 

VM has coverage in those areas.... odd.

 

SO then it IS possible. Cool... so I'm not crazy then, when I see it on my phone. I get that little triangle all the time, I live in a low service area for Sprint. Although, my PRL is 1115, and I ALWAYS miss calls, probably to do with this. Boondocks, FL... (actually look up Lee, FL, if you don't believe me ;P)

 

I reloaded the Virgin PRL on mine because with 1115 loaded the phone would occasionally lock onto "something" that was Sprint and 1x then refuse to come off it -- it didn't claim to be roaming but 1x blows big fat ones when there's 3g service available -- and in this area there was.

 

there is an option somewhere under settings, that allows you to turn on data roaming, i turned it on and saw the exact same triangle, and digital roam, but i have only seen it once the day after i turned it on , it has never popped back up.

I do NOT believe, i was roaming, just some type of glitch.

 

I am also getting this roaming behavior (screen looks almost exactly like the screenshot mobstergunz posted for tanner, except I have 3G signal rather than wireless) in my apartment with my Optimus V.

My apartment always had spotty service, but I always managed to get signal standing in certain spots with the stock ROM. I decided to throw on a custom Backside-IHO (cm7) ROM last month. It worked perfectly with improved signal for a while, but a week or two later I noticed that, even though the phone showed full bars with 3g, I could not make calls or receive text message. Strangely, however, I was able to access the internet via 3G! Rebooting/battery pulls only fixed the problem occasionally. I did NOT usually see a "digital roam" triangle. But I would pretty frequently get a message about International Data Roaming.

There were a couple occasions, however, when I noticed a persistent digital roam with flashing triangle (and that is what I'm seeing at the moment). The behavior seems to be the same (no calling/texts but 3G internet works) with or without the digital roam indication.

Interestingly, the phone works perfectly fine everywhere else outside my apartment (I live in Manhattan), so I do think it's related to a low signal issue peculiar to my apartment/building.

The annoying part is that the phone locks on to this strong but functionally limited signal/tower and so I can't make calls in my apartment anymore, even in the spots where I used to get signal back when I was running Stock.

I called VM tech support about this and they were surprisingly helpful in saying that they've seen this problem before, and he walked me through the steps of re-activating the phone (had to go back to froyo to do this) which he seemed to think would definitely solve the problem. It did actually fix the problem for a while, but the behavior came back a few days later. And now I'm stuck in a cycle of trying to reactivate the phone every time this happens (about once a week), and the reactivation doesn't even seem to solve the problem consistently.

Sorry I know this is a Triumph forum but couldn't find anything similar in the OV forums and it seems like a related issue. Anyone have a guess as to what's going on? Is my phone locking onto a Verizon tower that is somehow allowing 3G data access but no calls? Or is it a weird Sprint/VM tower? I have not attempted to change the PRL at all, maybe that would help?

 

Interesting- that's the first ive heard of it on an optimus v. I was staying with my aunt in Manhattan and thought sprint was terrible; i only got like 1 bar on the 12th floor of the apartment building. I never roamed. If the phone says it's roaming, it for sure is- I know that for a fact. it won't call or text. I'm wondering if it isn't either a rogue sprint tower OR a Verizon tower that allows data roaming... Or, even better, Virgin will allow data roaming and voice roaming like they do on the postpaid side of things! that would be sweet, and forestall me switching to ATT for their rural coverage- Verizon sucks here. It costs sprint and Virgin mobile for every kilobyte of data that is sent or received over Verizon towers, so it might behoove them to either go all out and ch
rge their users for it or stop being half-assed and turn it off all the way.It's a pain to want to get calls, and not get them because you have better coverage than you normally would. It pisses me off thinking about the whole thing.

$.02

 

Yeah it's definitely been frustrating. Phone works beautifully everywhere else in the city aside from my apartment. For those times when i do happen to have service, open signal maps shows that I'm connecting to towers out in Queens haha (I'm right on the river).

 

May I reccomend a PRL change? Although, I'm not really sure if that would help. I roam a bit even with the stock PRL. I live in the boonies of north florida, so I'd be fine with roaming if it allowed for me to use my phone... its annoying. Like I said, maybe they'll add it in as a feature for those that pay extra for it.

 

I feel like I'm bringing a dead thread back to life, but rvarn1, that's a splendid idea! I occasionally go to visit my mommom in deal island, the only place I don't seem to get signal all over the shore. I'll occasionally get no bars where I work, but that's just minimal signal. xD I work with a lot of aluminum and steel too, so I would think the air makes a sort of Faraday cage with all the cutting of said materials going on.