Hey guys, I've been searching the forums for a bit in search on an answer to my question, but couldn't seem to come up with anything exact so I thought I would post my question here.

Anyway, I'm going to be living in Spain for the next 5 months. I have a verizon BB 8830. While I'm there I want to have voice and data(specifically e-mail) but I really wouldn't like to sign up for verizon's pricey international voice+data plan. Instead I'm trying to find out if its possible to get a prepaid SIM card from another provider while in Spain for making phone calls, and sign up for some sort of international BB data plan so I can send and receive e-mail. Does anyone have any suggestions about what do to or know if this is even possible? Thanks.

I don't know where you would get one, but it should be possible. I know that the Vzw 8830 uses CDMA in the states and GSM overseas.

The prepaid sim cards don't have BB data. You would need to get an actual Blackberry postpaid account with a local carrier. Also, your Verizon BB will need to be sim unlocked before it will even work. Verizon will do this for you if you tell them what you are wanting to do.

John, you probably know this better than me, but I thought that one of the issues with the Verizon version of this phone was that the SIM was locked and that it would only work on their (and their partners) networks. Has this changed?

The 8830 is considered a 'World Phone'. Even though it is Verizon 800 MHz and 1900 MHz CDMA, it has the capability of using the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz GSM networks.

I wasn't very precise. I thought that the SIM for access to GSM outside of North America was locked and that you could not swap a local SIM in like you can with the Sprint 8830. I could be wrong, however.

The Verizon 8830 is sim locked. However, Verizon will unlock it if you go through the proper channels. There were a couple threads that had the exact steps to go through at Verizon to get it unlocked. Once unlocked it will work just as any other unlocked BB in Europe. It won't, however, allow you to use GSM in the US/North America.

thanks guys, all this info has been very helpful.

Does anyone have any advice on how I would go about getting a Blackberry postpaid account from a local provider? I've been searching the internet, but I haven't come up with anything too solid.

Check this out. They also have BlackBerry data for $0.30/day BIS or $0.50/day BES. You can even use your US phone number.

Call-in-Europe: International SIM Cards- European SIM Cards

thanks mckinneycm, that provider looks promising. Does anyone have any other suggestions? maybe trying to get a blackberry SIM card from vodaphone here is Spain? Does anyone have any experience with this?