Educated Guesswork

Holy class action, batman! I bet a lawyer somewhere is salivating.

Could his iPhone be set up as a GoPhone? That may not count as in-network.

So I've been doing a little research into my own bill on the "unlimited M2M calling" stuff. Sometimes, it looks like I'm getting M2M free calls when calling non-AT&T customers, for example I have a call to a number with 408-202 being given M2M rate, and that prefix is registered to Verizon, not AT&T/Cingular, according to this: http://www.telcodata.us/telcodata/telco

Can you look up the area code/prefix for your friend's iPhone and see how it's listed?

Dom: no, it's not a go-phone.

Craig: Interesting theory. The number in question is a ported T-Mobile #, and it is listed as T-Mo. But you'd think they'd be able to check against their own database of #s.

Interesting. Maybe if the number was ported only recently (like, when he got the iphone), there's a DB update which hasn't propagated to the billing system yet. My number, ported from a landline many years ago, shows correctly on my wife's cell bill as "M2M".

In general, this number portability thing has got to be a complete nightmare for the telcos, for all these border reasons like this. I've actually found it can be confusing for humans too. My 650-851 prefix on my cellphone confuses everyone in woodside/portola valley who are used to that prefix as being a local landline. My wife works with the town of P.V. a lot, and they're always calling my cellphone to reach her, because it's 650-851 and they assume it must be our home phone #...