[jixxer#WN]

Does anyone know how to unlock a treo 300 that was originally activated on the Sprint network? I live in Canada and Sprint up here doesn't offer wireless. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

[Dragonman]

The 300 was specifically designed for Sprint. AFAIKAFAIKAFAIK $it$ $CAN$'$T$ $be$ $unlocked$ $like$ $a$ $GSM$ $Phone$. $It$ $is$ $CDMA$ $technology$, $so$ $you$ $MAY$ $get$ $a$ $CDMA$ $provider$ $to$ $activate$ $it$, $but$ $it$ $will$ $be$ $up$ $to$ $them$.

[jixxer#WN]

So I have to specifically look for a carrier that uses CDMA technology?

[Dragonman]

Correct. Verizon does but their Data is outrageously expensive. Also heard Alltell is CDMA. May be others, Not sure.

[jixxer#WN]

Thank you for your help. I only ask cause the company I bought it from told me they could unlock the phone so I could use it anywhere for $30 and I didn't know if I was getting ripped off or not.

[jixxer#WN]

Now I have Rogers in Canada telling me that I can use the phone on there network but that I have to first get Sprint to unlock it then I can get a Rogers SIM card to use. That's great except that this phone doesn't have a place to put a SIM card. And I still have to get Sprint to unlock it. And they say that since it's only a single band GSM 1900 I wouldn't get as good reception as with a dual band 850/1900 GSM. I'm really starting to regret this purchase.

[Dragonman]

There s no place for a SIM card because CDMA doen't use them. A CDMA phone will not work on a GSM network.

If you can't find a provider you could sell it on ebay.

[jixxer#WN]

Thanks Dragonman for your advice. There's still Bell Canada up here that uses CDMA technology. I'm still waiting to hear back from their tech support. I found out that Rogers uses TDMA. As you can tell I'm still really confused about all this I just thought it was a really nice phone. But the lad at Rogers was able to tell me that they have a Treo 600 available for their network. It's decision time now. Thanks again I really appreciate it.

[Dragonman]

glad to help, good luck!

[dduckling]

Jixxer, I'm in Canada and I bought a Treo 300 too. Can you let me know when u figure out how to unlock it and if it can be used with Bell. I'm pretty sure the phone roams with Bell, cause each time it tries calling out it says you've reached Bell Mobility, please call customer service. Let me know how things go, and ummm if u end up having to sell it, haha can u help me sell mine too... thanks

[mkusk#WN]

Jixxer:
I unlocked mine and have it activated with Bell.
You have to have a serial hotsync cable to unlock.

you can email me @ mkusk@myrealbox.com for mor info

[mkusk#WN]

Here is the instructions i used to unlock my Treo300:

Connect your serial cable to your computer and phone
Turn off Hotsych Manager
Dial ##3424 to enable passthrough mode
start Bitpim
under "Edit" choose settings
You've got to pick the Comm Port your cable and phone are
hooked to
Pick LG-VX7000 (that's the phone that worked for me, anyway)
Under "Data" pick "Get phone data"
Go to "filesystem"
Click the "+"
Click the "+" next to "NVM"
There's another "+" next to another "NVM", click it
Double click "nvm_0002"
on the right of the screen you'll see a bunch of periods,
numbers and words
find a sequence of digits where you have six digits,
then a period, then six more digits
like this "xxxxxx.xxxxxx"
the six digits after the period is your MSL

you can download bitpim here

http://www.bitpim.org/

Mike

[letsgoflyers81]

CDMA phones don't get unlocked in the way that GSM phones do. With GSM, you get a SIM card from the carrier. The SIM identifies your to the carrier and the towers. You can pop the SIM in any GSM phone (that's not locked to another GSM carrier) and you're set. If you have a phone that's locked to Rogers and you put a Cingular SIM in it, it won't work. Unlocking it means you can put in any SIM from a GSM carrier and it will work.

CDMA phones don't have SIM cards. The information that identifies you to the network is in the phone itself. CDMA phones are usually "locked" to one provider and if "unlocked" then you can reprogram it for another provider. It's an entirely different process than unlocking GSM. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that unlocking services you've seen are for GSM phones, not CDMA.

Let's look at the different networks in North America for national carriers.

CDMA: Sprint, Verizon, Bell, Telus
GSM: Cingular (and AT&T), T-Mobile, Rogers, Fido
iDEN: Nextel, Mike

CDMA phones cannot be used on GSM networks and vice versa. If someone from Rogers said you can use a Sprint phone if it's unlocked, they had no idea what they were talking about. It's technically possible to activate a Sprint phone on Bell or Telus however it won't happen. To activate a CDMA phone, its ESN needs to be in their database and they must activate it on their network. Bell and Telus have strict policies that they will not activate another carrier's phone. Besides, even if they did, most likely the data services and some other features wouldn't work properly because CDMA carriers use proprietary software that's not fully compatible on other networks.