Cell Phone: Sim Card Questions

[ray]

I'm a noobie when it comes to my cell phone, so please correct me if my logic is incorrect here.

Facts:

1) I'm on sprint here in the US. CDMA Network
2) i have a blackberry 8830 world phone - digital dual band 800/1900 MHz CDMA networks and dual band 900/1800 MHz GSM/GPRS networks for use in Europe and Asia

When i'm in the United States, obviously I am on the CDMA network with Sprint. I am traveling to Asia in a couple weeks and have a prepaid sim card. Asia is running on the 900/1800 GSM network.

My blackberry 8830 has a sim card slot currently slotted with a generic sprint sim card. Because I'm on the CDMA network when i'm in the United States, the sim card is useless. I have a prepaid sim card with an Asia phone number.

Can't I just leave the prepaid asia sim card in my phone between now and when I actually go to Asia (and switch over to the GSM network once i get there)??

[Devhux]

First things first: Is the phone unlocked? If not, you won't be able to use the prepaid SIM anyways.

Otherwise, I can't see why you couldn't just leave the card in there - especially if you go to your network settings options and tell it to use CDMA network only for now.

[bachviet]

I'm a noobie when it comes to my cell phone, so please correct me if my logic is incorrect here.

Facts:

1) I'm on sprint here in the US. CDMA Network
2) i have a blackberry 8830 world phone - digital dual band 800/1900 MHz CDMA networks and dual band 900/1800 MHz GSM/GPRS networks for use in Europe and Asia

When i'm in the United States, obviously I am on the CDMA network with Sprint. I am traveling to Asia in a couple weeks and have a prepaid sim card. Asia is running on the 900/1800 GSM network.

My blackberry 8830 has a sim card slot currently slotted with a generic sprint sim card. Because I'm on the CDMA network when i'm in the United States, the sim card is useless. I have a prepaid sim card with an Asia phone number.

Can't I just leave the prepaid asia sim card in my phone between now and when I actually go to Asia (and switch over to the GSM network once i get there)??
Yes you can leave your SIM in there since the phone does not have the bands for the US.

[ramazank2]

When you say Asia SIM prepaid sim, be careful because when I was in China different areas required different SIMs. I had to buy one SIM for Beijing and one for Shanghai... That was 4 years ago so it may have changed. Also if you are in Japan they have a completely diffrent network.

[ray]

When you say Asia SIM prepaid sim, be careful because when I was in China different areas required different SIMs. I had to buy one SIM for Beijing and one for Shanghai... That was 4 years ago so it may have changed. Also if you are in Japan they have a completely diffrent network.

Yeah, I'll be traveling to Hong Kong (my sim card is from PCCW, one of the mobile carriers there).

Thanks for the info guys. I'll call Sprint to check if my phone is unlocked and all that crap.

updated: just called Sprint and verified on several forums, Blackberry 8830 from Sprint are unlocked already. Yippee!!

You guys are awesome.