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Jason black

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 12, 2011
178
0
Pretty much, it randomly started searching. I was curious and looked into the settings menu and I found these. What do you think will happen if I flipped it to automatic?

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If you are roaming, it will automatically pick a carrier for you that is a partner to your carrier. It will do nothing if you are not roaming.
 
Its sort of hidden since it only comes up when the phone is searching for a signal lol
 
Odd, it's always there for me on a UK iPhone 4, and has been since 3G even when not searching.

same here, when set to automatic when i'm roaming outside the US it picks a carrier for me. When I turn automatic off then I have the choice to choose whatever carrier is available.
 
All it means is that if it's on, the device selects and connects to a carrier automatically. That should be the default setting.

If it's off, you can select which network to connect to, in which case your choice is remembered and the device will always try to connect to the selected carrier only. However, this should really only work when on roaming, as you shouldn't be able to connect to any network other than your own.
 
On my Verizon 4S, the Carrier menu appears after ~5-10 seconds if I have a foreign SIM in the phone.

The carrier menu will only let you toggle between GSM networks as far as I can tell. I can't seem to figure out how to toggle between CDMA (Verizon) and GSM from the phone directly.

Anyone know how to do this?
 
I really hate how American carriers always try to lock you in even with off-contract phones and with post-paid bills. I've travelled to numerous GSM countries, and the ease with which mobile communication and billing happens is phenomenal. My cousin uses an (admittedly nice) HTC Android phone that he bought from an airport for about $600, and the way he switches SIM cards (and thus carriers) is as if switching hats or something. Really easy and really efficient. And since you pre-pay however much you want to those specific SIM cards, you never have to worry about a bill showing up or anything.

Some might say that this type of pre-paid technology is a "third-world technology," but I can assure you, it feels like it's far more advanced than the ancient and greedy way of carriers locking in your off contract phones so you can only use their carrier.

Hopefully, in 50 years from now, we can have some of the same type of network switching and pre-paid ability that my cousin has overseas.

-end rant. :eek:
 
I really hate how American carriers always try to lock you in even with off-contract phones and with post-paid bills. I've travelled to numerous GSM countries, and the ease with which mobile communication and billing happens is phenomenal. My cousin uses an (admittedly nice) HTC Android phone that he bought from an airport for about $600, and the way he switches SIM cards (and thus carriers) is as if switching hats or something. Really easy and really efficient. And since you pre-pay however much you want to those specific SIM cards, you never have to worry about a bill showing up or anything.

Some might say that this type of pre-paid technology is a "third-world technology," but I can assure you, it feels like it's far more advanced than the ancient and greedy way of carriers locking in your off contract phones so you can only use their carrier.

Hopefully, in 50 years from now, we can have some of the same type of network switching and pre-paid ability that my cousin has overseas.

-end rant. :eek:

Bite your tongue, 50 years. Let's hope for 5 :(
 
Bite your tongue, 50 years. Let's hope for 5 :(

I wish mate. But if AT&T/T-mo merger pulls through, then there's essentially no use for switchable SIM cards... there'll only be one giant, and maybe some regional GSM companies. :(
 
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