??? Cingular 32K "National" Sims DO NOT work in CA. OR. WA. and NYC ???

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DKH - 30 May 2004 14:25 GMT

I am looking into buying a SIM from Ebay, and I see that some that are for
sale work "Nationally" with the exception of California, Oregon, Washington
State and New York City??? Why??? or they all do not work in these areas
eventhough I live in New York and can go to a Cingular store in the area and
get a GSM phone???

I also understand that Cingular will not activate used cards, but what if
these were "New" unused cards???

TIA

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Richie - 30 May 2004 18:36 GMT

> I also understand that Cingular will not activate used cards, but what if
> these were "New" unused cards???

My understanding is that Cingular will not activate any SIM card unless you
buy it from them for$25. There's no harm in asking and your local area store
may do it for you -- but I doubt it.

Let us know what the outcome is.

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Joseph - 31 May 2004 18:42 GMT

>I am looking into buying a SIM from Ebay, and I see that some that are for
>sale work "Nationally" with the exception of California, Oregon, Washington
>State and New York City??? Why??? or they all do not work in these areas
>eventhough I live in New York and can go to a Cingular store in the area and
>get a GSM phone???

One of cingular's original GSM systems was the Pacific Bell Wireless
PCS system in California, Nevada and Washington state (actually a
converted CDMA system of GTE Mobility. When Verizon was formed they
had to divest themselves of any conflict of interest holdings since
Verizon got the old Airtouch system in Washington.) cingular also had
a system inherited from the old Bell South DCS system in the
Carolinas. The rest of the GSM operation is from overlaid TDMA
systems anywhere else they were the "cellular" operator. It's likely
that a different SIM is used in CA/NV/WA/NC/SC than is for elsewhere.
As for NYC I'm not sure. The NYC cingular system was sharing the
infrastructure with T-Mobile so that probably makes a difference as
well to what SIM is compatible.

>I also understand that Cingular will not activate used cards, but what if
>these were "New" unused cards???

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