Last Sunday we witnessed the beginning of the Atlas fire in Napa County. Unfortunately, the Atlas fire along with other fires in both Napa and Sonoma counties has forced many to leave their homes, lose their homes and lose loved ones. We evacuated our place on Monday morning without Wi-Fi or cellular, we were in the dark about which roads were open or where the fires were located. I used Waze (and offline Google Maps) which I assume was also using an offline map, but while driving I noticed something interesting, my AT&T iPhone (MN9N2LL/A) for a short period displayed Verizon as the carrier. I'm well aware that AT&T phones are GSM and Verizon uses CDMA and GSM abroad. I'm curious if anyone else has ever had this happen? Maybe it was due to the emergency situation and frequencies are open for first responders? We're lucky to be home safe, just curious as I've never heard of this or even thought it was possible.
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AT&T iPhone displayed Verizon during emergency situation
- Thread starter Ryan5505
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Technically, LTE is GSM-based so an AT&T iPhone 7/8 with Intel chipset will work on Verizon's LTE network. It just won't work on the CDMA portion (e.g. calls assuming VoLTE is not enabled/available).
I cannot say for sure, but my hunch is that your hunch is correct - something, somewhere is done so that if you have a cell phone that doesn't have a connection to its carrier for whatever reason but can connect to another, they'll allow it during emergency situations.
Best wishes to you, your family, your neighbors, and the entire Napa Valley.
Best wishes to you, your family, your neighbors, and the entire Napa Valley.
It’s admirable this happened. Safety and need of connectivity goes beyond dollars and company boundaries.
I think that you're probably correct in your hunch. Thank you for the kind words, I'm heading up to St Helena tomorrow to see what is going on - we've been pretty lucky so far.
My hunch is that your hunch about his hunch about your hunch is probably correct. 
In all seriousness though, that sounds like a logical explanation to me, for whatever that's worth. It certainly is an interesting incident and observation. I've not witnessed this first hand. I guess in that regard perhaps I'm fortunate.
Glad you made it out OK and have weathered the disaster as well as can be expected. Best wishes to all who've been impacted.
In all seriousness though, that sounds like a logical explanation to me, for whatever that's worth. It certainly is an interesting incident and observation. I've not witnessed this first hand. I guess in that regard perhaps I'm fortunate.
Glad you made it out OK and have weathered the disaster as well as can be expected. Best wishes to all who've been impacted.
Could be the companies relaxed the rules/compatibility for roaming. Also could be that you wouldn't of normally roamed there on Verizon there because of coverage except the other towers were out of commission.
I've see some odd roaming names, big and much smaller carriers when traveling.
Good luck. I remember visiting an office out there in 90's that a couple of coworkers lost their home in the Oakland wildfire(s).
I've see some odd roaming names, big and much smaller carriers when traveling.
Good luck. I remember visiting an office out there in 90's that a couple of coworkers lost their home in the Oakland wildfire(s).