On Thu, May 14, 2009 10:00 pm, Kevin Pulliam wrote:
If you don't want cell service, you don't have to call anyone. You can even turn off the phone radio so it doesn't use any battery power looking for a signal.
Actually, almost every single handset sold today still communicates with the towers, even when you interactively tell them to disable the radio. Some handsets even visibly show the radio as off (i.e. no "antenna" icons or similar), but they're still sending and receiving commands from the towers directly. Also, you might as well disable GPS on the device as well, because that communicates with the towers also (A-GPS, or "Assisted GPS"). The GPS will triangulate your position through the use of nearby cellular towers, even when the radio is off! So yes, you can disable the radio and feel safe, but the only way to be sure, is to pull the battery, because most handsets will lie to you.