Orange Blackberry 9700 on Telus network?

[mset]

Hi guys. I posted this over on Crackberry, but unexpectedly had no response.

I'm in Canada, Telus is my cell phone provider. I heard recently that Telus will eventually allow you to come to their network with a phone branded for another carrier. For now, I have a Blackberry 9700 but I may need a new one. I need to know whether a 9700 sold for use on the Orange network in the U.K. can currently be unlocked to work on the Telus network as easily as the Youtube videos make it out to be. The English girl in the video makes it seem easy but will it work with a Canadian SIM card? There are a few sites which provide codes - anyone know which is best or what the cost is?

Someone suggested that it will be okay as long as the 'bands and frequencies' are the same. I fear that I don't have certain knowledge about this - I assume this means GSM vs CDMA (bands) and frequencies. I'm trying to figure that out. (EDIT: Found this at Crackberry
"[To use a cell phone on the Telus network] you need 850/1900 MHz on UMTS aka HSPA")

Thanks.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

You can certainly unlock a BB 9700. You might have to use one of those unlock sites to do it which might run $15-$20.

As for the bands, double check and triple check the 3G bands. Telus' 2G network is CDMA meaning you have no fallback on a BlackBerry because 2G GSM is not supported. From GSM Arena (http://www.gsmarena.com/blackberry_bold_9700-2963.php) it seems the 9700 they sell there should be 850/1900/2100 compatible. Just make sure the 3G bands are 850/1900 or else you're screwed on Telus. I really don't see them selling a 1700 version in the UK, but it could be possible because some parts of the world use 900 mhz UMTS.

 

[mset]

As for the bands, double check and triple check the 3G bands. Telus' 2G network is CDMA meaning you have no fallback on a BlackBerry because 2G GSM is not supported. From GSM Arena (http://www.gsmarena.com/blackberry_bold_9700-2963.php) it seems the 9700 they sell there should be 850/1900/2100 compatible. Just make sure the 3G bands are 850/1900 or else you're screwed on Telus. I really don't see them selling a 1700 version in the UK, but it could be possible because some parts of the world use 900 mhz UMTS.

Perfect, just what I needed. Thanks a lot. According to this chart at Wikipedia, Orange uses the 900 band in the Dominican Republic, but it does not say anything specific about the UK. It does not include 'Europe' or UK among the countries using the 850/1900 spectrum. It looks like maybe the UK 9700 will be 2100. I notice you mentioned '850/1900/2100' compatibility, and also to 'make sure the 3G bands are 850/1900'. Does this mean that 2100 would work on a network like Telus, which is specifically 850/1900? I am assuming not.

EDIT: Hmmm... just realized that I recently took my 9700 over to Europe and it worked just fine without a SIM card switch.

EDIT2: Getting there. These are allegedly the specs for a Rogers/Bell/Telus 9700

Wireless Networks

3G (HSDPA) compatible
UMTS: 2100/1900/850/800 MHz (Bands 1,2,5/6), 2100/1700/900 MHz (Bands 1,4,8)
GSM: 1900/1800/900/850 MHz

This explains why my 9700 worked in Europe.

This is from the RIM U.K. site . Apparently identical for HDSPA/UMTS except that the North American phone just says '3G (HSDPA) compatible' and doesn't specify bandwidth. I assume this means that even if an Orange phone is not working on all of these bands out of the box, it will if it's unlocked.

3G HSDPA networks: 2100MHz/1900MHz/850MHz
UMTS networks: 2100/1900/850/800 MHz and 2100/1700/900 MHz
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks: 850/900/1800/1900MHz