Bold 9900 or 9930 to go between USA and Canada?

I am looking to upgrade to the Bold 9900/9930, having had my old Bold 9000 for a while now. I live in Canada, but will be attending school in the US this fall. My plan is to switch between my Rogers SIM card and an American SIM card (Verizon is supposed to be strongest in my area, followed by AT&T). A couple questions:

1) Is this possible to do?

2) Should I get the 9900 (with Rogers in Canada) or the 9930 (with Verizon in the US)? Or would either work in this case? I understand that the 9900 uses a SIM card, but I'm not sure that the 9930 does.

3) Is there a better option for traveling constantly between the US and Canada? (What exactly is Verizon's Nationwide Plus Canada plan?)

Any help is appreciated. Thank you very much.

9930 will do both CDMA and GSM sim card varients, but the only thing is with the 9930, it will only work on US 2G and not 3G data speeds. Thats the only difference.

Double-check me, but don't AT&T and Rogers use the same 3G bands? You'd unfortunately need to wait until freaking November to get an AT&T 9900, but you could get a Rogers one and if unlocked I think you'd have full AT&T access in the US.

Maybe I'm confused and thinking about Bell and Telus. I live in the US, not Canada, so my understanding of Canadian carriers is limited to phones I've considered importing until I saw the price.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

go 9900 and have nothing to worry about

You could get a 9900, unlock it, and then get a T-Mobile SIM card.

AT&T PayGo only works in the US, so you'll lose out on any calls if you're out of border range.

T-Mobile works in Canada. I have Tmo as my roaming SIM card. I just inserted into my unlocked 9900 and it works :)

Or, you could just not bother and get a US travelling pack that is offered by Rogers.

Originally Posted by chrono807

Double-check me, but don't AT&T and Rogers use the same 3G bands? You'd unfortunately need to wait until freaking November to get an AT&T 9900, but you could get a Rogers one and if unlocked I think you'd have full AT&T access in the US.

Maybe I'm confused and thinking about Bell and Telus. I live in the US, not Canada, so my understanding of Canadian carriers is limited to phones I've considered importing until I saw the price.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

All Canadian carriers except Wind use the same 3G bands (rogers fido bell telus virgin)

They are the same 3G band as AT&T

Tmobile & Wind canada are the ones that use different 3G bands


So rogers & at&t phones will work together on 3G, but they will only get 2g/edge with tmobile

@ The_Kills:
So, just to clarify, a 9930 from Verizon would be fast in the US, but slower in Canada when used with a Rogers SIM card?

@ chrono807:
If I were to get a Rogers 9900 and unlock it, would there be a difference in how well a Verizon vs AT&T SIM card worked in the US? I have heard that Verizon is stronger where I will be so I would prefer that if they are theoretically equal.

I am leaning towards doing that. There is a Nationwide Plus Canada plan offered by Verizon however... I want to make sure that isn't the obvious choice. From what I understand, it only covers long-distance calls, so I would still pay extra for texting over the border and roaming when in Canada. Can anyone confirm or explain this plan to me?

Thanks again guys

Ultimately, if you want the most flexibility from your device, get the 9900. You can unlock it, and freely swap SIMs between US and Canadian carriers all the while maintaining HSPA+ speeds.

If you get a 9930, you'll get CDMA 3G speeds in the US, but will have to roam when you're back here in Canada on either Bell or Telus' EVDO network to get the same speeds. If you unlock the 9930, and put in a Rogers SIM, you'll only have access to the quad band EDGE network, and not the HSPA+ network due to the hardware not supporting the North American HSPA bands.

Originally Posted by gramilo

@ The_Kills:
So, just to clarify, a 9930 from Verizon would be fast in the US, but slower in Canada when used with a Rogers SIM card?

@ chrono807:
If I were to get a Rogers 9900 and unlock it, would there be a difference in how well a Verizon vs AT&T SIM card worked in the US? I have heard that Verizon is stronger where I will be so I would prefer that if they are theoretically equal.

I am leaning towards doing that. There is a Nationwide Plus Canada plan offered by Verizon however... I want to make sure that isn't the obvious choice. From what I understand, it only covers long-distance calls, so I would still pay extra for texting over the border and roaming when in Canada. Can anyone confirm or explain this plan to me?

Thanks again guys

I've never brought my phone to Canada so I don't really know - the others are much more knowledgeable in that regard than I am!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

In terms of coverage CDMA is has slightly more coverage by few percentage in Canada as of today. For general population I suggest going on the HSPA for the speed.

You also have to consider how HSPA coverage is like while you are in the US. I found myself benefiting more with CDMA coverage when I travel south of the border. In Canada I find very little difference between CDMA and HSPA coverage.

Originally Posted by costco1

You also have to consider how HSPA coverage is like while you are in the US. I found myself benefiting more with CDMA coverage when I travel south of the border. In Canada I find very little difference between CDMA and HSPA coverage.

Yup, I found that when I was down in the States and had a CDMA 9630 roaming on Verizon, the coverage was noticeably better than now, when I'm roaming on AT&T.

So will an unlocked verizon work on bell or telus and will it be selectable 3g-hspa and cdma? Has anyone tried this?
I care less about rogers. I need cdma.

I just wanted throw in my two cents, I unlocked my 9900 and used my AT&T Sim card that I bought for my 9800. I didn't need to do anything fancy when I re-booted the phone with the American SIM card a boz came up right away asking for the unlock code and boom it works.

Originally Posted by kboczek

So will an unlocked verizon work on bell or telus and will it be selectable 3g-hspa and cdma? Has anyone tried this?
I care less about rogers. I need cdma.

No. Bell and Telus will not support CDMA from another carrier such as VZW, and the GSM radio in the 9930 won't work on any Canadian carrier except Rogers since Bell and Telus are only HSPA or CDMA (they don't have an EDGE network--only Rogers does).

As stated above, cdma carriers generally don't allow other carrier cdma devices on the network, so it's moot for cdma. You'd just be using gsm on edge on a 9930...

Go with the Bold 9900. I don't know anyone who use a 9930. Rogers, Bell and Telus all use 9900s. I will go with it!

I grew up along the border in southern Alberta. A few of my friends that live in Alberta use Verizon phones they bought in Montana. It's much cheaper.

If you're in toronto, windmobile works with tmobile blackberries, but doesn't have a 2G (edge) fallback for those rogers/telus/bell/att devices.

Hi guys, I have a question regarding 3G/4G Bands, I'm looking to buy a 9900 and I have a seller in Vancouver who is selling me a brand new one but its on Tmobile Canada.

My question is, will the Tmobile Canada 9900 get 3G/4G on Tmobile USA?

Originally Posted by deuce2290

Hi guys, I have a question regarding 3G/4G Bands, I'm looking to buy a 9900 and I have a seller in Vancouver who is selling me a brand new one but its on Tmobile Canada.

My question is, will the Tmobile Canada 9900 get 3G/4G on Tmobile USA?

There isn't a tmobile canada existing. Likely they're lying, or they've gotten windmobile or mobilicity mixed up/confused. I would rather you buy the device from the carrier you want to use it on instead. It could possibly be stolen. Be careful.

Bold 9930 is a true world phone; it's a dual-band EVDO Rev A (800/1900 MHz), quad-band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), and dual-band HSDPA (900/2100 MHz) device, meaning it can hit 3G data speeds both here and overseas with the right data plan. You also get 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi at 2.4GHz, and a/n Wi-Fi at 5GHz, which should fit perfectly into just about any existing corporate Wi-Fi network.

Originally Posted by deuce2290

Hi guys, I have a question regarding 3G/4G Bands, I'm looking to buy a 9900 and I have a seller in Vancouver who is selling me a brand new one but its on Tmobile Canada.

My question is, will the Tmobile Canada 9900 get 3G/4G on Tmobile USA?

Originally Posted by Rootbrian

There isn't a tmobile canada existing. Likely they're lying, or they've gotten windmobile or mobilicity mixed up/confused. I would rather you buy the device from the carrier you want to use it on instead. It could possibly be stolen. Be careful.

^ what Rootbrian said. I haven't heard of T-Mobile setting up shop here, as there are a lot of hoops for non-Canadian companies to set up shop.

Buyer beware.

Originally Posted by GapBoyPCS

You could get a 9900, unlock it, and then get a T-Mobile SIM card.

AT&T PayGo only works in the US, so you'll lose out on any calls if you're out of border range.

T-Mobile works in Canada. I have Tmo as my roaming SIM card. I just inserted into my unlocked 9900 and it works :)

Or, you could just not bother and get a US travelling pack that is offered by Rogers.

T-mo phones on Rogers DO NOT work on H+ . I have already tried.
Go with a Rogers 9900 unlocked, which you can do for free on the web, then add your ATT sim card for H+/4G both in the US and Canada. I own a T-Mobile 9900 and a Bell 9900...because the two are NOT interchangable for 4G/H+ speeds.

Originally Posted by GapBoyPCS

^ what Rootbrian said. I haven't heard of T-Mobile setting up shop here, as there are a lot of hoops for non-Canadian companies to set up shop.

Buyer beware.

I'm not worried at all, I'm buying from a guy on another forum and he has 4 feedback from other members on that forum. He's sent me pic's of the actual phone, I'm paying through paypal and he's worried more about me somehow scamming him. I would upload the pics of the phone but don't want to hi-jack the thread. The phone is in a Tmobile Box and I can see the imei in the pic.

I'd say 9900 from Rogers... Its frequency would work in Europe too bc it's pretty standard.

Though, I have a 9900 for Canada and 9000 for Germany. I find it cumbersome to switch SIM cards and I lose little things too easily. Hard to lose a Bold.