Was my phone hacked?

[TedRomon]

Hi,

A few minutes ago, my phone acted weird and i would liek to know if anyone experienced it yet, or if PublicMobile already had this kind of issue..because it feels as if someone may have hacked it but not sure.

Here's what happenned: a few minutes ago, all of a sudden my service became "Rogers", replacing the name "Pluc Mobile" to "Rogers" on the top left corner, and there was a "R" on the antenna logo. After about 5 minutes, it turned back to Public Mobile.. How is this even possible without changing the sim card or any settings?

[RavingRaven]

@TedRomon 

As mentioned your phone was briefly roaming on the Roger's network. Do you have roaming enabled on your phone? If you traveled close to the border or into the US with a roaming plan or add on your phone would act similarly except you would also get a roaming text.

In your case you were either out of range or more likely there was a brief outage on the "belus" network triggering the recent roaming/network sharing agreement providers were required to implement by the CRTC in response to the Roger's country-wide outage debacle last year.

[Phil_Adelphus]

@TedRomon   Check out this Koodo link about "extended network coverage"

https://www.koodomobile.com/help/extendednetwork 

"When connected to our Extended Network, your device network identifier (typically displayed on the top left or right corner of your screen, not displayed on all devices) will show our partner carrier instead of “Koodo.”

When I was on Rogers I used to get EXT every time I went into the local Walmart.  It didn't say which other provider I was attached to but it clearly wasn't Rogers.  Given the above note from Koodo I would imagine PM might show the other carrier name instead of EXT.

Edited to add, having said the above, most articles from other carriers say extended coverage is limited to postpaid, so not sure how that is working with PM unless something has changed.

[softech]

@TedRomon 

the R usually means roaming

what brand and model you phone??

[Chalupa_Batman]

I am 100% positive it has happen more times than you even know. If it's set to automatic, it will find the best signal possible. That includes other carriers towers as, once again, there is an agreement in place to piggyback off each other when needed. Mine does it all the time when I'm downtown in Winnipeg in certain buildings. This is perfectly normal. 

[TedRomon]

@Chalupa_Batmani understand what you mean, it makes sense..but i still find it kinda weird that it's the first time it ever happenned in 3-4 years..

[TedRomon]

@Handy1  yeah i will for sure, jsut in case.

@softech  But, how is it even possible if the sim card is set to public mobile? can it really "discover" other carrier networks for no reason?

[Chalupa_Batman]

Hey @TedRomon 

That is actually quite normal. Depending on what City you live in, your phone jumps around from network to network to give you the best signal possible. Imagine you've just entered an area that Public Mobile signal just can't reach. Well, you're phone will automatically search for the closest signal with the best strength until you're back closer to the Public Mobile network. There is an agreement between most Telco's to share when it's needed. That's all your phone did, just shared a network so you had signal. Happens all the time in your pocket and don't even realize it. If you live in an area that is Public Mobile through and through and it has full bars everywhere, you can follow advice given here already by picking PM as the only network. However, saying that though, this example you've seen today just shows that at this moment, Public Mobile isn't the strongest network so you may wish to leave it on automatic so you're never without service. Hope this helps explain things.

[Handy1]

@TedRomon  That’s a strange one for sure . But to be safe I would suggest changing your passwords 

[softech]

@TedRomon your phone was not hacked, just look like it did t get a stable network connection

Go to Connection, and for Network selection, set to Manual and select Public Mobile and it will stay with it without trying to look for other signals