Forum Discussion

2chiefsRus's avatar
2chiefsRus
Explorer
Oct 18, 2013

Time on Cell Phone

I spent over an hour on the phone with Sprint discussing this problem without a satisfactory solution. Bottom line of this long post is Does the time displayed on your phone when you make a call equate to the time that the call should be billed as regarding peak or off-peak?

When traveling in different time zones in the past, I was always able to know if I was calling during the "nights and weekends" off peak time by the time displayed on my phone. For some reason on the 11th of October that seems to have changed. I am in Kentucky about 6 miles from the line between Central and Eastern Time zone. My phone displays Eastern Time zone all the time. I haven't traveled into the Central time zone area at all. We have been here since the 26th of August and everything was fine until the 11th. I call my Mom every night between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Until the 11th of October, these calls showed as 7:28, 7:35, 7:45, etc on my phone's call log and on the Sprint website. Beginning the 11th of October, my phone still displays the 7 something as does my cell phone call log BUT on the Sprint website for billing, from the 11th forward, they show as 6:28, 6:35, 6:45, etc.

Does anyone have a suggestion beyond turning the phone off/on, removing the battery, having Sprint send an "update" to the phone, updating the firmware (which showed no updates available) because that is all Sprint's representatives have done so far. I don't think that Sprint believes me at this point. They have added a batch of 200 additional anytime minutes to my account for this month but we are going to be here through December and it annoys me that I can't depend upon what I see on the phone to know how my calls are going to be billed.

The phone is a Sanyo Taho by Kyocera. Basic talk flip style phone. I can use my husband's Straight Talk phone to call Mom until we leave here because he has plenty of minutes.

Has anyone else ran into this problem?

16 Replies

  • p220sigman wrote:
    That is odd that the time would stay the same if you are hitting a tower in the other time zone. Do you have the option on your phone of setting the phone to use the network time or not? On mine, the default setting is to network time, but I can deselect it so that the phone time doesn't update with the network. That is the only thing that I can figure.


    Good suggestion. I've looked through the phone settings but haven't found anything yet. Pulling up the manual now.
  • That is odd that the time would stay the same if you are hitting a tower in the other time zone. Do you have the option on your phone of setting the phone to use the network time or not? On mine, the default setting is to network time, but I can deselect it so that the phone time doesn't update with the network. That is the only thing that I can figure.
  • RoyB's avatar
    RoyB
    Explorer II
    We turn our CELL phones OFF running close to the MEXICO border. Got nailed once with a roaming charge from the other side of the border. Don't know about the Canada border. It was a pretty heavy charge but I was able to get it removed... Sure don't want to go down that road again haha...

    I think you can disable roaming from the cell phones as well...

    We use VERIZON here...

    Roy Ken
  • Just as paulcardoza said- the calls you made showing on the billing as 6PM instead of 7Pm is because you were on a tower in the Central Time Zone. Happens all the time in border areas.

    This begs a question: Why are you on a plan that still has peak and off peak minutes? You can find many providers that provide ample anytime minutes at reasonable prices, as well as plans that allow certain numbers (friends and family plan) that don't use your minutes at all.
  • paulcardoza wrote:
    Not an uncommon problem at all. Depending on conditions, you could easily be connected to a tower in the central TZ. I hear this happens a lot when people travel close to the Canadian border as well. They end up getting surprised with international roaming charges. I'm not all that familiar with Sprint, but AT&T has a feature (A-List) where you can select a handful of numbers which you can call for unlimited minutes. Does Sprint offer anything similar?


    I fully understand connecting to other towers but always before when connected to a tower in another time zone, the time displayed on my phone would change to the time zone of the tower so I KNEW how I would be billed. I also know when traveling near the Canadian border that I would be able to see a ROAMING signal on my phone that indicated I would be connecting to a Canadian tower. I have no problem with those examples - my concern is why doesn't the phone indicate the time zone change when it connects to the tower?
  • Not an uncommon problem at all. Depending on conditions, you could easily be connected to a tower in the central TZ. I hear this happens a lot when people travel close to the Canadian border as well. They end up getting surprised with international roaming charges. I'm not all that familiar with Sprint, but AT&T has a feature (A-List) where you can select a handful of numbers which you can call for unlimited minutes. Does Sprint offer anything similar?

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