11/01/2000 Recently, Bell Atlantic Mobile (Verizon Wireless) swapped and acquired ex-Alltel properties in a number of markets, including the Harrisburg, Scranton and Central PA systems (00096 and ex-00172). Most of these acquisitions/transfers were completed in late Spring/early Summer. Shortly thereafter, BAMS Philadelphia (00008) sent out a notice to it's Philly metro area customers (ie, South Jersey/Atlantic City, SE PA inc. Philly, all of Delaware and Cecil County, MD) that portions (but oddly not all) of the ex-Alltel Harrisburg system were now included in the Philly market "home" airtime area. The ex-Alltel now-BAMS/Verizon counties included are: Monroe (I-80 near the PA/NJ Border) , Luzerne (around the I-80/I-81 JCT), Schuykill (I-81 south of I-80), Lebanon (I-78 just west of Allentown where the 00008 BAMS Philly market cuts off), and Lancaster (along US-30 west of where the current 00008 BAMS Philly market cuts off). Essentially, the new counties surround the 00008 system and were probably added so that BAMS/Philly customers who pick up a stray ex-Alltel signal while still in the 00008 system won't call and complain that they were assessed roaming charges. I'm still not clear as to why they just didn't add the Harrisburg and Scranton areas as well (which are part of the ex-Alltel 00006/00172 systems; the 00172 seems to have been retired in 1999 or so and the 00096 took over to cover the whole system; 00172 used to cover the Scranton/Water Gap portion of the system); as it stands right now, the lines are even more nebulous as the roam indicator is not an accurate determinant of if you will pay roaming charges or not in the 00096 system -- you can be in Lancaster and not pay and then go west a bit on US-30 and will pay. In any event, we just received our company bill for calls placed in supposedly-included Lebanon County and they were (incorrectly) billed roaming airtime. The calls were labeled: "Lebanon/B PA" and rated at 50 cents per minute, ie, the Philly Digital Choice roaming rate, NOT the home rate. In other words, the promised "home" rate was not billed correctly and instead calls in the counties which BAMS indicated were to be considered part of the home area were billed as roaming calls instead. This isn't the first time that BAMS has had problems in billing Digital Choice customers the correct rate in their home or extended home; some of my earlier posts from a few years ago when Digital Choice was introduced dealt with BAMS/New England customers being billed the incorrect rate in a number of markets, including the Catskills/01516 (which after months of calls was finally fixed in early 1998), BAMS/Wallingford overbills for roaming in the ATTWS/Litchfield/ 01101 system (also fixed), and more recently BAMS/Philly overbills for calls in Ocean County, NJ (Atlantic City area, 00250), also fixed a few months after I raised the issue with them. Hopefully, BAMS/Philly will be as quick to correct these overcharges, especially after they so publicly promoted them in their billing inserts and directly on their customers invoices. In the meantime, check your bills to make sure that you were billed HOME airtime charges in those five counties in PA and not roaming charges, assuming you are a BAMS/Philly Digital Choice subscriber. (This post and updated SID list are also available at www.wirelessnotes.org) Regards, Doug