What Deb has discovered happens to us all the time - esp with older 'Smart' phones (or PDAs like Palm 6xx). The Wireless companies are often clueless - T-mobile is anyway - good that AT&T even recognized the problem. It was explained best to me that when you are in a fringe area like most of western mass and go on and off the network repeatedly - the system the towers use to hand off the the cel connection gets confused and just thinks your phone is busted and so puts you offline. It really has nothing to do with cleaning the SIM card - just turn your phone full off for 5 min so the network clears your presence, depending on your phone that might mean removing the battery but no usually. And it has nothing to do with home land (in)security -- we have seen this problem since well before 2001, it varies between networks. Rich Deborah Chandler wrote: > Okay, so I just called AT & T tech support and as per the advice I was > given, all I needed to do is to power down my phone and power it back > up again, and now my phone is fine again. In case this info is helpful > to anyone else in the future, what that entails is shutting off the > phone, removing the battery pack, removing the SIM card, wiping the > contacts clean, and putting it all back together again in reverse > order. Give it a few minutes to reset itself. > > The techie also suggested i power off the phone for 30 seconds every > day, for it to synchronize with the towers, or something like > that...(I don't understand ...sounds like Homeland Security at > work...) If someone understands what that is all about, maybe you can > drop me a line...I havev had this phone for over 3 years and have > never done that... > > Anyway, sorry for the inconvenience in writing to you earlier... > > Thanks, > Deb > -- Rich Roth CEO On-the-net Bringing you complex online systems since the net was young http://www.tnrglobal.com - http://www.on-the-net.com/rr/