It's as "worldwide" as anything is. It's only "worldwide" if a signal is available to you!
It's very obvious what happened. There is no Nextel service in Independence! If there is no service in that town you of course will not be able to use your phones. It's the same whether it's Sprint, cingular, T-Mobile or any other carrier. All carriers do not serve all areas. I know that if I go to Elma, Washington my T-Mobile service won't do me any good. Cingular won't do you any good either. Only Verizon will work there. Not every service works in every location despite what you might infer from a company's advertisements.
There is no service so you could not use it.
That was the answer!!
Just because there are "cell towers" it doesn't mean that they are for Nextel!
Quite the contrary. It's because there is no coverage that you indeed are getting that message. Nextel does not service the area or if they do there's not a tower that's near enough to provide service.
This is your answer!!! I'm not sure why you think there's any more "solution" to your problem. Nextel does not service the area.
Nextel does not roam *at all.* If there's no service they do not roam on any other tower. Nextel uses the iDen technology. iDen is incompatible with all other wireless technologies whether CDMA, TDMA, AMPS or GSM. Technically iDen which Nextel uses is not even cellular service. It is SMR which is a glorified walkie-talkie system.
Don't take all advertisements as completely true in every situation. You really should know this for *any* ads.
No offense, but if you're going to use *any* service you need to check it out and make sure that it will work for the purpose and place you wish to use it. It's obvious to me that whoever checked out wireless options for where they were going to end up did not do their homework.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, it was not _me_ to start with. I have inquired of Mike Sandman who has Nextel (among other) services; he told me Nextel was not very good 'anywhere not along a major interstate', but now these guys are stuck with a couple phones that are useless, and a contract to boot. When newer technologies are sort of a mystery even to relatively experienced users, how is it that kids in their early/mid twenties getting a 'cellular phone' for the first time in their lives are expected to know anything? PAT]