I have Manual Network Selection on my Cingular Phone!
The guys on Howard Forums pointed me to this lovely little tool called Nokia Profile which lets you modify your phone somewhat. Specifically, I can disable an option called “CSP” that causes the SIM to overwrite certain functions in the phone. Since I have the various Nokia cables, I gave this a try and, lo and behold, I have the “Network Selection” on my phone. Pity all the carriers show as “Cingular,” but at least I can choose which one. 
Now if I can just figure out how to hack the SIM so it shows the REAL names of the carriers…
Now this did not work on all of my Nokia phones–just my Nokia 6230 and Nokia 6820. It did not work on my Nokia 6800 or my Nokia 9500 (I would have really liked it on the latter).
I have some choice words for the folks at Cingular who decided I shouldn’t need to choose which towers to lock onto.
