Using AT&T Pearl on Alltel

[daethian]

My niece is an Alltel customer. I sent her my pearl 8100 when I upgraded to a Droid, hoping she would be able to use it. Is this not possible? I thought it was just a matter of dropping in the Sim card. I bought the phone new off of eBay already unlocked. She said when she called Alltel they told her that she couldn't do this because AT&T had not bought out Alltel in her area yet.

[lak611]

The 8100 is a GSM phone. The old Alltel was a CDMA carrier. GSM phones will not work on CDMA networks. If she is divested and not going to be part of Verizon's network after their purchase of Alltel, she will have to wait until AT&T converts her to GSM (if indeed she will eventually be part of AT&T).

If she is now part of Verizon, the 8100 will never work, as Verizon is a CDMA network.