PCS CDMA confusion

The phone is technically compatible with your carrier's network, however it is locked to Sprint's network. Unless you get the unlock key for the phone, it can not be reprogrammed to your carrier's network.

You probably will also need to know the command (which is generally not documented in the user's guide) for manual programming of the phone. It may not be possible to do automatic programming of the phone from the carrier's network.

Verizon does not lock their phones.

-- Mark --

does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Thanks a lot. Do you know if there are legality issues concerning obtaining a phone, getting the MSL and reprogramming for a different network?

There are no legal issues that I am aware of, but there is another problem. As CDMA phones sold in the US do not use a SIM type of device, each phone has a unique ESN. Carriers buy phones in bulk with a block of ESN numbers in a specific range. If your phone, even if it is the same manufacturer, does not have an ESN within the carrier's block, they may refuse to activate the phone as it would require an extensive update of all their databases to show the foriegn ESN is authorized and not a roaming unit.

Not correct. ESN registry propagation is actually quite simple and efficent. If not, it would take months before you could travel from one SID to the next with your phone every time you switched handsets.

Some carriers DO restrict activation to specfic ESN ranges in their inventory, but this is mainly by choice, and done to ensure that the phone has the correct firmware and application software (i.e. Java vs. BREW), and to ensure that tech support can actually offer technical assistance with your equipment. Some carriers (like Alltel) don't care so much about this, and as long as the phone meets the CDMA spec and also meets current FCC requirements such as AGPS and MDN/MSID differentiation, it can be activated. Others (like Sprint) are very strict in this regard, and will almost never activate a device that isn't within its inventory of Sprint-native phones.

I found that my carrier does allow ESN registration. I bought the phone and gave them the ESN and they have activated it. Now I am just waiting for the MSL.