That seems not to be true. Someone that I might know might have had their corporate Blackberry plan canceled. They might have been issued a new AT&T phone with no data plan. They might have plugged that SIM into their Blackberry, and continued to use it, including WiFi Access, but no cellular data at all.
Another person might have taken the SIM from a Blackjack with data to a blackberry with data, and be working fine.
I have heard that the opposite is bad pizza. A Blackberyy-plan SIM in any non-Blackberry phone hits As-You-Go rates.
Yes. AT&T will allow a "smartphone exclusion" for people who had a smartphone before their policy went into effect and who then subsequently drop their smartphone plan (whether or not they put the SIM card into a dumphone or a smartphone).
What that means is that OLD plans are grandfathered with AT&T; this smartphone requirement for data only applies to NEW plans (or changes to a newly subsidized smartphone from AT&T).
But for NEW plans, AT&T swears they will add the more expensive dataplan (currently $25/month) if they detect an IMEI of a smartphone (and if you don't have the grandfathered-in smartphone exclusion).
What seems criminal is that they can FORCE you to have a dataplan even if you don't want it - and - as it seems to turn out - if you have a T- Mobile branded unlocked phone, then you can't even use the speeds of AT&T's network.
Yet you have to pay for a plan you don't want, don't use, and can't make full use of.
That's why I'm STILL hoping to find a way to change the IMEI number ... but it's looking mighty slim right now for the chance that anyone knows how to change the IMEI number in the USA (where it's perfectly legal).
Don't know and don't care. I had exactly the same problem but with Verizon. If I activate a smartphone, Verizon will automagically tack on the cost of the data plan that I'll never use. I've tried to bypass this policy with Verizon and without any success. It's a cash cow for the cell providers as many users don't even realize that they're paying for an added data plan.
What I've done is remove the cellular provider from my data use and have been carrying two devices for about 1.5 years. One is a generic cell phone (LG VX8300) and the other is a jailbroken iPhone 3G that is NOT activated with AT&T. The phone does the talking while the iPhone
3G does the data, schedule, address book, games, utilities, etc. All of my customer and favorite locations have wi-fi so I don't really need cellular data. Carrying two devices is not elegant or cool, but it is cheap and works fairly well.
GSM is packet based. As far as I know, voice and data are the same, though I assume voice packets gets priority routing. So we are not talking just data, but voice too. EDGE has been hacked. 3G has sort of been hacked, but it is quite secure.
CDMA is where voice and data are different. The Verizon iphone 4 will not be able to do voice and high speed data at the same time. There is a chip (and I assume filter) in the works to allow this, but it won't make the first Verizon iphone 4. Thus the iphone 4 on verizon will be shittier than the iphone 4 on GSM, but fanbois won't care.
Basically the Verizon iphone 4 is to stop Android from eroding the iphone market. The product is so bad that Jobs didn't even show up for the announcement.
A brand new Blackberry Bold 9000, from AT&T. No SIM, no activation of any sort, was able to connect and surf via WiFi. The little "WiFi" indicator stayed dim, didn't go bright like it normally would with a data plan enabled SIM inserted.
For high speed (3G) data, yes. 2G (GPRS/EDGE) data will work on the "wrong" network. I use my 3G smartphones as 2G phones on T-Mo. (Ironically, I also have two T-Mo-branded 1700MHz 3G smartphones, but I prefer the Sony to either, so I put up with slower data.)
3G phones list the "GSM" (2G) and 3G/UMTS frequencies separately in the specs, so be careful. My Sony, for example, is 850/900/1800/1900 GSM and
900/1900/2100 3G, and my HTC HD7 is 850/900/1800/1900 GSM and
900/1700/2100 3G. All US GSM phones have 1900 GSM.
The only 1700/1900 3G smartphone I'm aware of is the Nokia N8, a Symbian- based device.
A dim "WiFi" indicator indicates that the device hasn't connected to a BlackBerry infrastructure yet. You may have a usable wifi connection at this point, but BIS and BES/MDS stuff won't yet be available.
This is expected when you haven't activated with a carrier or inserted a SIM since both are required for BIS access (and you'd know if you activated on a BES over wifi -- this seems to be possible with a valid SIM inserted, even if the cellular radio is disabled and the SIM isn't activated)
Any software that use direct TCP sockets (and therefore can go over wifi without relying on BIS or BES/MDS) will work, but HTTP libraries that rely on BIS won't.
Even the internal browser may work, if you set it to HotSpot mode.
Precisely why I suggested 3rd party browsers that do not require BIS, and which I provided a means to install without OTA.
For wifi, I think the phone would work as is. For use on the air, presumably using airtime, the APN would have to be set. For instance, my APN (access point name) is set to epic.tmobile.com. No password requires. This is in the TCP/IP menu under options.There are lists of APN on the net for various providers.
Sorry if I wasn't clear- I meant the N8 had both 1700 AWS and 1900 UMTS in the same device (as well as 850 and 2100, IIRC. The only quad-band UMTS phone I'm aware of.)
The BB 9780 comes in two tri-band versions- one with 900/1700/2100 UMTS and one with 850/1900/2100 UMTS. The N8, therefore supports 3G on either AT&T or T-Mobile (or Rogers and Wind if you prefer!) while either model of 9780 would only support 3G on one or the other.
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