[PrincesseEm]

I have been lurking on these forums for a long time and have always found the answers I've been looking for until now, so thanks for that!

Now that Telus supports dual-mode phones I eagerly went in to get myself a Tour because I travel to Switzerland a lot and am constantly annoyed not to be able to use my Telus CDMA phone there. Then I found out the price...even with my "hardware credit" it was going to cost me about $500..not in my budget right now! So I asked the guy in the Telus store if I purchased a phone on say, eBay and brought it in could I use it? He said yes, no problem, just make sure it's unlocked. So I did just that - bought a Verizon Tour off eBay for a fraction of the price Telus would have charged me to sign onto a new 3 year contract. I got it unlocked and triumphantly returned to Telus to have it activated. This is where my problem begins..

The Telus rep (different than last time) said that according to her system the phone was not unlocked. I go back to the person who unlocked the phone and we go through all the settings and lo and behold, the phone is indeed unlocked. Then the person who unlocked it tells me that he doesn't think a Verizon phone, dual mode or not, cannot be used on Telus unless it is flashed (I have read enough to know that flashing is illegal).

So, my question is, can I use this Verizon Tour on Telus or have I spent a small fortune only to have to re-list it on eBay for some other lucky person who CAN use it with their carrier? Who is right? The Telus rep who said it can be used as long as it is unlocked or the unlocking dude who said that a Verizon dual-mode phone cannot be used on Telus?

Thanks in advance for your help, and sorry for the long post!

[Dubdub]

If it is CDMA and Telus is CDMA, unlocking does nothing AFAIK. The unlock is on the GSM side of things. And I am not sure how the CSR could tell "looking at her system".

Does Telus activate CDMA devices from other carriers?

[Noodle22]

Telus just migrated away from CDMA. I've seen other things about this, where they don't use sims in their phones still, their only used for roaming. That may be why the Verizon phone does not work.

If you look through a couple of these threads here, a member named Kirk was going through a issue with trying to find a sim for his storm to store his contacts on, and it goes into more detail about it. Might have the answer.

[PrincesseEm]

Thanks for your replies. I did read through Kirk's thread with much interest but didn't quite find that it applied to my situation.

According to the Telus rep they are moving away from CDMA and towards HSPA+ and
3G+. Their website seems to substantiate this information.

Noodle22 you have brought up a point I hadn't thought of - despite Telus moving away from CDMA I hadn't thought about the fact that they may not allow me to hook up at CDMA phone anymore. I guess I need to look for an HSPA+/3G+ capable phone instead?

Any Telus afficionados care to weigh in here?

[Dubdub]

I think Howardforums.com has a telus subsection. Might want to check there.

[PrincesseEm]

I will deffinitely check that out, thanks!

[jeffmik]

Originally Posted by Noodle22

Telus just migrated away from CDMA. I've seen other things about this, where they don't use sims in their phones still, their only used for roaming. That may be why the Verizon phone does not work.

If you look through a couple of these threads here, a member named Kirk was going through a issue with trying to find a sim for his storm to store his contacts on, and it goes into more detail about it. Might have the answer.

Telus did not migrate away from CDMA - its still running full speed. They are still selling onto their CDMA network but have ALWAYS had the policy to only activate phones sourced from Telus.

Telus launched an HSPA network.

Verizon/Telus Tours do not have the HSPA frequencies to work on Telus. They are meant to be used in CDMA mode. Telus does not have a 2G GSM network.

A Verizon Tour cannot be activated on Telus.

[rambo47]

It's a general policy of all major CDMA carriers NOT to activate a phone that is not branded to them specifically. Although the technology is compatible, Sprint will only activate a Sprint-branded device. Same for Verizon and Telus. Even if they sell the same model phone, if that one you're trying to activate is not in their data base as originally having been sold by them, they just won't do it. They give lots of bs excuses and put-offs, like "it's not unlocked", but that's just to get you to go away.