Sim Card Phones

[Chicken Warrior]

I was hoping someone could help me with something: If a GSM phone has no sim card in it, is it for sure unlocked? Or is it possible for sim-less GSM phones to still be locked?

Thanks!

-CW

 

[snowles]

Or is it possible for sim-less GSM phones to still be locked?

Oh yeah. The only way to know for sure is to find out the original provider of the phone, which can be tricky to say the least. Not having the SIM slot makes it a lot harder than just popping one in to see if it is.

Curiosity asking, where'd you find a SIMless GSM phone? Are you absolutely sure it is a GSM phone and not a TDMA?

 

[Chicken Warrior]

You can purchase Palm's GSM treo phones as unlocked handsets, but I was just wondering if there would be any way to know for sure you were getting an unlocked one used on ebay. I thought if your phone was locked, you couldn't remove the sim card, but I guess I was wrong.

 

[snowles]

No, if the phone is locked there's no way to tell unless you pop in a SIM card and it will not register right away, unfortunately.

 

[Chicken Warrior]

Thanks for the info. One more question: can you use GSM sim-card phones with Bell? Somebody told me you could not, but that seemed strange..

 

[lysyfacet]

Thanks for the info. One more question: can you use GSM sim-card phones with Bell? Somebody told me you could not, but that seemed strange..

yes you can, i have a buddy that does, and has no problems. So as far as your question goes, you can :smile: . Tell me someone if i'm wrong, it could also depend on the phone perhaps.

 

[snowles]

Okay: you're wrong.

Bell phones use TDMA technology, meaning that the phones are not cross-company compatible. There's different circuitry built into each to communicate with their towers, and hence will not work together.

It's not possible, ever, no way.

 

[lysyfacet]

Okay: you're wrong.

Bell phones use TDMA technology, meaning that the phones are not cross-company compatible. There's different circuitry built into each to communicate with their towers, and hence will not work together.

It's not possible, ever, no way.

well then how did my buddy manage to pull it off :S?

 

[Chicken Warrior]

Bell does sell one Motorolla phone with a sim card, and requires an extra $15 to activate it (on the normal fee). Maybe it's a new thing?

 

[snowles]

well then how did my buddy manage to pull it off :S?

Your buddy is a voodoo medicine man?

Chicken Warrior: Are you talking about the A840? It's the only one I know of that has the capability to do both, but the pricing associated is ludicrous. However, you can't use any GSM phone with Bell, but you can use that particular one, and it is locked in exclusively to Bell. A little more information from the net follows:

This is from a December 12th press release:

Bell's new flat-rate global roaming on GSM networks service will cost users $2.49 per minute globally for all in-country and country-to-country calls, including all long-distance charges, offering users a more competitive and simpler price plan for international calling.​

GSM? Bell? How is this possible, you're asking yourself (perhaps as you laugh at the ridiculous pricing structure), since Bell's network uses CDMA technology which is incompatible with most of the rest of the world's networks?


Well, I guess they got tired of answering questions about why their phones didn't work in Europe or China or hundreds of other places, so Bell bit the bullet and is now celling a dual-mode CDMA/GSM phone, the Motorola A840. Hmmm...now this is the kind of thing that I *might* like if, say, you could swap out the SIM card and have both a Bell pay-as-you-go plan for places where Rogers/Fido don't have coverage. But, of course, it's all locked in, can only be used with the Bell network, and won't be able to take advantage of cheap local providers by just swapping out the SIM card.

Information and quote from here. Follow up information provided by users show that it works only on European bands of GSM technology, and thus would never be able to use it here for anything other than the Bell TDMA structure. From reading various reviews around the net, the phone has been universally panned.