Intelligent roaming mobile station for emulating a pre-intelligent roaming mobile station

A method for configuring an intelligent roaming mobile station including an intelligent roaming database to emulate a pre-intelligent scanning routine associated with a pre-intelligent roaming mobile station, said intelligent roaming mobile station locating a service provider operating within an 800 MHz spectrum associated with the pre-intelligent scanning routine, and capable of locating a service provider operating within the 800MHz spectrum and a 1900 MHz spectrum associated with an intelligent scanning routine said method comprising the steps of:

• restricting the intelligent roaming mobile station to scan an “a” service band and a “b” service band operating within a 800 MHZ spectrum;
• selecting a search scheme from a plurality of search schemes used by the pre-intelligent roaming mobile station including a home only search scheme, a preferred-alternate search scheme, an alternate-preferred search scheme, a preferred only search scheme and an alternate only search scheme;
• prioritizing, in response to the selected search scheme, at least one of the “a” service band and the “b” service band within the 800 MHz spectrum into a band scan order;
• and
• storing the prioritized band scan order within the intelligent roaming database.

An intelligent roaming mobile station for emulating a pre-intelligent scanning routine used by a pre-intelligent roaming mobile station, said intelligent roaming mobile station with means for locating a service provider operating within an 800 MHz spectrum associated with the pre-intelligent scanning routine, and means for locating a service provider operating within the 800 MHz spectrum and a 1900 MHz spectrum associated with an intelligent scanning routine, said intelligent roaming mobile station comprising:

• a processor including means for restricting the scanning of a plurality of service bands within the 800 MHz spectrum and the 1900 MHz spectrum to the service bands operating only within the 800 MHZ spectrum;
• a user interface coupled to said processor for displaying a list of a plurality of search schemes and for enabling a selection of a search scheme from the plurality of search schemes;
• said processor for prioritizing, in response to the selected search scheme, at least one service band of the service bands operating within the 800 MHZ spectrum;
• an intelligent roaming database coupled to the processor for storing the plurality of service bands;
• and
• an intelligent roaming scanning routine associated with the processor for scanning the at least one prioritized service band of said service bands operating within the 800 MHZ spectrum for a channel according to a prioritized band scan order, wherein said channel connects a service provider to the intelligent roaming mobile station according to the selected search scheme.