Yes... putting the SIM card from the 8830 into a quad band GSM phone here in the states delivers "no service". I guess the SIM isn't listed under any US carriers as an active SIM.

I don't believe there's any benefit to doing it, as it's more of an academic exercise. The only possible "benefit" to it would be using a rather inexpensive, "normal", old GSM blackberry than the nice "new" 8830 that I have. The thought of losing the 8830 while I was overseas isn't too exciting.

Besides that, there's also the purely academic thought of having an activated BB internationally while you're back stateside. Do they know that you're SIM is being used overseas? I'm sure they do...

In a less academic exercise, the only true upshot would be to use a "local" variety BB when I travel. In my specific case, it would have been nice to pop it into a chinese BB so I could leverage some specific language issues. But otherwise, this is truly just an academic exercise in understanding how the system is set up...