Has anybody had an experience similar to this?

I recently upgraded my account with Verizon and the rep told me *228, options 1 and 2. After that, I began to loose service in places where I used to have no problem. I get the "....Searching" message frequently. The only way to get rid of the message is to turn the phone off and on again. My signal strength is always very low and the Extended Network hardly ever comes on.

I did hard and soft re-sets, no help. Verizon rep said to *228, option 2 in order to get updated roaming codes and this did not work. They therefore suggest it's a problem with the phone.

I'm not inclined to trade in my phone unless absolutely necessary. It seems to me that Verizon has made upgrades to their system which are not compatible with the phone software and that's leading to the problems, but Verizon wouldn't tell you this.

Anybody have any suggestions?

VZW just came out with a new PRL (Preferred Roaming List). This is what your phone uses to decide which available signal to use. While there are usually additions to coverage there are occassionally deletions. For example VZW no longer has a roaming agreement with Mom&Pop Cellular and they take it off the list. You need to get to somebody past the first line in tech support to determine if coverage has been reduced in your particular area. I doubt that it is a phone problem.

-Quick

Jadymichael,

My 7135 worked fine at and around my house and then VW made some system changes and it hasn't worked worth beans since. See the thread on this issue: http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/showt...hreadid=28140. In trying to solve this, I learned alot about my phone, spend several hours with various VW reps, got nowhere. VW finally swapped phones with me and the new one seems to work slightly better. Still unacceptable performance IMHO. Not only do I have lousy coverage at home but now have found major holes along I90 that didn't used to be a problem. I'm patiently waiting for the next PRL change in hopes it is better. There is another thread (http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/showt...threadid=28140) which seems to hold promise but so far nobody who is knowledgable has responded to the posts as to how to make it work. Good Luck!

Dale

Thanks for these replies, drscott. Just for kicks, I had my phone and pda flashed yesterday; slight improvement, but still the "...searching" problem. As far as I'm able to make out, when the phone loses a signal, it is simply unable to recover. Turning off and then on almost always gets me back up and running, so I know there's a signal to be had. This has to be a software issue; basically, when the phone looses a solid digital signal, it cannot recover. Anyway, the thread you pointed out seems to be where the issue is joined, so I'm subscribing to it now. Thanks!