Disclosed herein is the method of operating a cellular mobile station to identify a suitable cellular control channel for entering a camping state with a highest priority cellular service provider, based on data stored in the cellular mobile station, that is preferred to a current cellular control channel the mobile station is camping on. The method comprising the steps of: (a) measuring received signal strength of a plurality of available cellular control channels; (b) attempting to lock onto the available cellular control channels having highest signal strength; (c) determining if a locked onto cellular control channel is a highest priority cellular control channel and, if so, then camping on that cellular control channel, and otherwise returning to camping on the current control channel; and (d) periodically interrupting any of steps (a)-(c) to receive control data from the current cellular control channel and then returning to the interrupted step.