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Originally Posted by madador03
Yeah I don't know much either and I'd agree that its one of the big differences, but the Blackberry 8830 is marketed on Sprint.com with the following feature: "Unlocked SIM Device. Use in market carrier SIM cards while traveling abroad" To my knowledge, this is the first I've EVER heard of this. I wish I could take that SIM card and stuff it into the iPhone. Although I wouldn't be surprised if using the sprint network required no SIM card, but international use allowed the use of a SIM card with an open slot. blah,
So any experts want to shed light on the differences between GSM and CDMA (and EVDO) and why we can't hack the iPhone for Sprint, which has been unlocked for use with any GSM carrier? You can get as technical as you want, I've got the brain for it...but that doesn't mean I won't ask questions! thanks a lot guys
Cheers,
Justin
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The best answer to your questing is an analogy: It is like the difference between speaking English and speaking German (just a random language selected  ). GSM and CDMA are different technologies or Languages. So they may run on the same frequencies and do similar things, but are not compatible with each other.
GSM phones (AT&T, T-Mo, Vodafone, etc) use SIM cards while CDMA (Sprint, Verizon) primarily do not (some do though). Verizon is selling a BlackBerry "Curve" that is marketed as a World phone. This is the exception to most rules. It is a CDMA phone that has a seperate GSM radio (phone) inside to work on the European/Asian GSM networks.
EVDO is the high speed data portion of the CDMA network (in simle terms), while UMTS/HSDPA (also known as 3G) is the high speed data portion of the GSM network. Equally as confusing is that UMTS is technically called WCDMA or wide-band code division multiple access.
This is a little off topic for the iPhone however, considering it has GSM voice and GPRS(slow)/Edge(not as slow) data technology and there will never be any "hack" to make it work on a voice CDMA network. I do predict there will be a 3G version of the iPhone by the end of 07. Still not compatible with Sprint or Verizon, but this will give the iPhone MUCH more speed when using the cellular 3g network than the current GPRS/Edge data.
LG Optimus G, Nitro HD, Samsung GS3, GS2 Skyrocket, Infuse, HTC One X, Inspire, Surround, HD7S, Xperia Play. iPhone 1st gen, 3G, 3GS, 4, 4S and 5.
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