blackberry, mobile-phones, att, t-mobileI recently acquired a two-year-old Blackberry Curve 8320 that was purchased through T-Mobile. I'd like to use it on AT&T to take advantage of its good voice plans. Is the phone compatible with AT&T's network? How can I find this information for myself next time?
T-Mobile and AT&T are GSM based for basic voice, whereas Sprint and Verizon are CDMA based.
However, for 3G all bets are off. Good news in this context is that the Curve 8320 does not do 3G. So for EDGE data and voice, the radio should work on both networks.
As Abhi noted in his answer, the phone is almost certainly locked, such that even switching SIM cards will not allow it to work.
Thus your task is to figure out how to Unlock it.
As I searched around, it seems that your provider (TMobile) could provide you an unlock code, but I have no idea if they will.
Otherwise there are solutions for software, via a cable or external hardware. Not too sure yet how easy any of those would be. But a quick Google search is pretty revealing on this topic.
Most phones that are purchased on a contract are locked down by network provider. You will need to unlock this phone, before you can use it with another provider.
You cannot use it with any other provider. THat's the purpose of this lock.
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