I have both a 7100t and a 7100i and unfortunately a new employer provided U.S. cellular service.
The company phone is a crappy Samsung (which does not use a sim card).
Is there anyway to use my 7100t or 7100i with my company's service?
In the past I have just removed the company sim card and put it in my blackberry, tossed the company phone on the shelf and no one was the wiser.
Also I've been told at least the 7100i will not work with U.S. cellular's network, Is this true.
Will the 7100t work with the U.S. cellular network if I somehow find a sim card with the correct phone number? or am I flat out of luck

no. 7100t is Tmobile, 7100i is Nextel.

You may be able to get it unlocked (look under the sponsors, there are a couple who do this for a small fee).

Isnt Us Cellular a CDMA company?

good point Sith. . .no dice on the 7100t in that case.

or the 7100i

So I'm skunked on this one then eh?
What about selling my old bberries and buying a new 8830?

As long as it is branded by US Cellular then you will be OK. In general CDMA carriers do not allow devices from another carrier on their network. GSM carriers do, but not CDMA carriers.

Looks like as of now, U.S. Cellular only offers the Pearl 8130 in the Blackberry line.

So, let me see if I have this right then.
(1) I will absolutely need a new phone right?
(2) It must be a U.S. cellular branded phone?
Two more questions:
Will an unlocked phone work as opposed to a branded (i really have no idea exactly what this means)
And lastly how would I get the new phone to work on U.S. cellular's network without a sim card swap, is it a simple matter of entering info into the new phone or does it need some sort of manipulation from U.S. cellular?
And thank you for your help, I’ve noticed there isn’t enough thanking going on and sometimes it even gets down right snarky.
So really thanks guys.

you need a USC phone, nothing else will work.

1 - none of your phones today are CDMA, so they won't work. If you want a US Cellular BlackBerry, then you need a new BlackBerry

2 - only US Cellular will tell you that definitively, but many people here believe that they will not put another carriers phone on their network.

Branded means it has a carriers name on it.
Unlocked means you can use a phone on a carrier other than the one branded on it

SIM cards are not used in CDMA phones. The 8830 is an exception because it is "World Edition" and uses GSM frequencies outside of North America.

CDMA phones must be programmed to work on the appropriate network.

So the 8830 is a good choice because it is both cdma and gsm so I won't ever have to deal with this issue of compatibility again?
And when you say "must be programmed to work on the appropriate network" do you mean that usc must program it or is it that any outside vendor like say horizonwirelessonline.com can program it?
The reason for all this is that I prefer to carry only one phone but I have restricted info on my phone which the law says I must "protect from commercial use" i.e. the company that I work for.
Would it be entirely wrong to suggest that it is the carriers that are screwing things up and stifling technological advancement and making this whole thing unduly complex and unwieldy and generally being a pain in my ass?
The phone manufacturers, software and hardware seem to be more than capable but so many features are either turned off, locked out, etcetera.
It's hard to blame the carriers though; they're just acting in their best interest in the "free market" sense.
What is good for the individual is not necessarily good for the rest of us eh?

There is also a user education problem where people do not understand that all carriers do not use the same technologies, and these technologies are not interchangeable.

You've been given tons of information here. If you have to use US Cingular, buy one of their phones and be done with it. It will work with their network.

Don't turn this into a rant about carriers and technology. None of this is news.

Right.
Sorry bout that.