Domestic Roaming

Welcome to our guide on domestic roaming! In this article, we’ll explore domestic roaming, how it works, and what you need to know to ensure you stay connected while on the go. Let’s dive in!

Domestic roaming occurs when your device disconnects from its carrier's cell tower and connects to another carrier's tower. There are two types of roaming: international and domestic. In this article, we’ll focus specifically on domestic roaming.

Domestic roaming takes place under the following conditions:

• The device is currently within the US.

• The device is in an area where its regular carrier has a weak signal or no service.

• The device can connect to another carrier's service.

• Domestic roaming has been enabled on the device's plan.

Currently, not all Gigs plans include domestic roaming. This feature can be quite expensive and is not typically included in standard carrier plans. As a result, users may encounter issues when they are outside areas with reliable network coverage.

Users often need help when making a call outside their coverage area. They may hear a message prompting them to "please add credits" to their plan. This message indicates that domestic roaming is not enabled on their plan, preventing them from connecting to other networks' cell towers.

When attempting to make a phone call outside of their coverage area, users will hear a message asking them to "please add credits" to their plan. This is a clear sign that domestic roaming is not currently active, and they cannot connect to other networks.

Unfortunately, this issue cannot be resolved by adding credits to a subscription, and we cannot modify the carrier's default message.

While domestic roaming is a consideration across all carrier networks, we have observed that only a tiny subset of T-Mobile users are experiencing the "please add credits" message. Users on the AT&T network are currently unaffected.

Please look at the T-Mobile coverage map to understand where T-Mobile users may experience this issue. You can also check coverage for a specific address on the 🔗 T-Mobile Coverage Map

While adding domestic roaming to a plan would resolve the issue, it can significantly increase costs for you and your users. We aim to keep our services affordable, so we recommend considering the following solution:

❗️Consider moving affected users to an AT&T SIM. Before switching, please ensure the user's device is "Unlocked" and on AT&T's approved list. You can check device compatibility on the 🔗 AT&T website.

It's important to note that the cost of domestic roaming is heavily influenced by user activity. Generally, smartwatches have lower usage compared to phones, making the cost of adding domestic roaming to smartwatch plans less significant. Therefore, domestic roaming is automatically included in smartwatch plans but not phone plans.

If the cost of domestic roaming for smartwatches becomes too high in the future, Gigs reserves the right to disable this feature or pass the cost onto the customer.

If you have a smartwatch user who seems to lack domestic roaming on their plan, please reach out to our support team at support@gigs.com

Thank you for taking the time to learn about domestic roaming with Gigs. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact our support team.