[Atomas31]

Hi,

I want to know how or where can I check on my old BB WE 8830 (BELL) to see if he is lock or unlock? If lock, how can I unlock him?

My carrier is BELL

Thanks,

[Fubaz]

To determine if your BlackBerry is "unlocked" for use on carriers other than for which it is branded:

A. On your BlackBerry, go to Options > Advanced Options > Sim Card.
B. At that screen type MEPD (see note below) on your keyboard. A new menu will pop up.
If your BlackBerry has a SureType keyboard (71xx and 81xx devices) you will need to double-tap the P, so the actual keys entered become M E P P D.
C. Look for Network in the list.
D. If your device is "unlocked", it should say Disabled or Inactive. If it says Active, it's still locked to that carrier

if you need to unlocked
Unlock Blackberry, Samsung & HTC| Unlock Codes| Unlocking Cell Phones

[Atomas31]

Thanks Fubaz! Looks like it is lock

[freethisberrydotcom]

Many unlockers here can unlock it for you.

[jeffh]

Hi,

I want to know how or where can I check on my old BB WE 8830 (BELL) to see if he is lock or unlock? If lock, how can I unlock him?

My carrier is BELL

The BlackBerry 8830 operates on 900/1800 Mhz GSM/GPRS networks in Europe and 800/1900 Mhz CDMA2000 1X Ev-DO networks in North America. These frequencies are NOT compatible with GSM on North American networks. An unlocked 8830 will not work on Bell's GSM network. There is nothing you or Bell can do to enable it.

[Jim Dumont]

Will a BB WE 8830 (verizon) work on Koodo's network?

[Kirkx]

8830 WE will not work with any GSM carrier in North America, because it doesn't support GSM/GPRS 850 and 1900 MHz frequency bands.

Koodo is just a discount division of Telus and Telus doesn't even support the older variants of GSM (GSM, GPRS, EDGE). It only supports HSPA and later network technologies. In theory Telus could put you on their legacy CDMA network but in practice they just don't do this.

Here is some background. BB 8830 WE was launched in April 2007. Those days only Rogers had GSM network in Canada and all other carriers had CDMA networks (Bell, Telus, SaskTel, MTS, TBayTel, etc). At that time CDMA technology had 50% or higher market penetration only in the USA, Canada, S.Korea, Taiwan and a few Caribbean countries. Japan was a unique case, ahead of everybody, with their W-CDMA network. Everywhere else the dominant network technology was GSM. In Europe GSM was actually the only choice for years, they had never used CDMA except by some very small local carriers around a few cities. Australia and Brazil were in the process of phasing out their CDMA networks and replacing them with GSM networks.

If you were a customer of Bell, Telus, SaskTel, MTS or TBayTel you could use your CDMA phone without problems in USA, Canada and a few other places mentioned above, but you were out of luck in Europe and mostly everywhere else in Latin America, Asia, Middle East or Africa, which were all GSM territories.

To resolve this problem US and Canadian CDMA carriers started offering so called "world phones", which worked both on CDMA and GSM networks. BB 8830 WE was one of the first of those phones. It was basically designed for use on CDMA in the US and Canada and on GSM overseas. This is why it didn't support GSM frequencies used in North America (850 and 1900 MHz).

BlackBerry models introduced after 8830 WE supported all four GSM frequencies (900, 1800 and 850, 1900 MHz), so if you can get one of those and get it unlocked it should work on any Canadian GSM carrier.

Before shopping around for a used phone you need to do some research about networks and frequencies. Here are a few tips:

1) Public Mobile: CDMA network.

2) Wind Mobile: AWS network. It's derived from GSM, but you need to have a closer look at frequencies if you swap phones between different carriers.

3) Bell and Telus. HSPA and CDMA networks.

CDMA is a legacy network mostly used by Canadian customers who haven't upgraded the phone since 2009 or earlier and also by US visitors roaming on Sprint and Verizon phones.

HSPA network was turned on in November 2009. HSPA is derived from GSM, but you need to have a closer look at frequencies if you swap phones between different carriers. Because Bell and Telus were late into GSM game they bypassed all its older variants and jumped straight to HSPA.

4) Sprint: CDMA network.
5) Verizon: CDMA network.
6) AT&T: GSM network
7) T-Mobile: AWS network.

That's just the quick summary. To learn more google CDMA, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, HSPA, HSPA+, AWS, LTE.