CDMA Services Current Country

[wirecutter]

Does anyone know what the significance of this setting is and why it is not required on GSM-only phones?
I have a problem that I get a popup stating the phone cannot determine what country I am in. I am then taken to the Current Country setting in the Phone settings tab where I have to select my country.

This is on a Verizon TP2. The problem occurs when I'm in Canada. So fair enough I left the US and it can't figure out I'm in Canada. Problem is that I'm near the border when in Canada, so the phone switches networks on an ongoing basis which means I get this pop up at random times during the day.

I noticed in the registery key:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\OEM\PhoneSettings\CurrentCountrySett ing

There are no values in there...wondering if I can enter a default value there to default to Canada when it can't figure out what country I'm in....

Also, not sure if I want to mess with this setting as I'm not sure what the significance of this setting is.

Any thoughts much appreciated.