This may seem like a dumb question ... but I have $$$ and a blackberry which is in desperate need of an update (7520). My company has a BES and pays for my phone, but the service is through Nextel.

Can I go to the mall, buy a pearl or other swanky blackberry, and then just give Nextel some numbers and have it work ok ... minus of course, the Direct Connect feature?

Quick answer: no.
Long answer: No; Nextel's network is based on iDen technology, which is not compatible with the GSM technology used in the Pearl.
Totally, 100% impossible.

Sorry.....

Let me ask you another question then.

If I were to convince my company that Nextel was no good, and I signed up with Verizon or Cingular or some other carrier with a cool phone, could I then use my BES account that my company provides? Or is the BES account carrier dependant?

<<Verizon shot - they have no cool phones >>

BES is not carrier dependant. BES does not care. The messages all go to RIM, and they sort out which carrier to send it to.

So ... my best bet is that route then. Try to get the corps to let me have a service through a carrier other than nextel ... and then use that providers BB to sync up through my corp BES.

Cool. Least I have an option. So, next question ... what provider? What phone? Lot's of talk on here about the 8800.

Answer depends on where you are...what carrier has the best coverage where you live and work? From everything rumored lately, Cingular has the 8800 coming soon (T-Mobile?), Sprint (CDMA) and Verizon have an equivalent worldphone coming in Q2.

Hmmm. Well, it seems I may need to talk around this area and find out who is the better carrier. It's a shame that certain companies offer certain phones and they only work on a certain provider's network. Why not have it so that the phones don't matter. By a phone from Sprint, it'll work on All-tell, buy one from Cingular and it'll work on Verizon. Honestly, before I posted this thread ... I just figured the device was the device and it was independent of carrier or network. But it seems like the hardware is somehow linked to the network. Thats a bummer.

The phone equipment isn't necessarilly linked to a particular carrier. It is linked to a particular wireless technology.
Different carriers use different wireless networks.

Cingular/AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM.
Nextel uses iDEN.
Verizon and Sprint use CDMA.

Those three types of networks simply don't speak to eachother.
Equipment from one type of network will never function on another type of network because it "doesn't speak its language".

So of those 3 technologies ... which is better? I watched the whole iPhone thing, and I think they said they are GSM and going to use something called "3G" ... which is completely foreign to me.

So ... is a network, like a power company? Your sort of restricted by geographic location? Like, does Sprint own Los Angelos, and Verizon own Compton?

Also, Sprint will only allow a Sprint branded phone on their network and the same is true for Verizon, meaning even though it is the same technology (CDMA) you can't put a Verizon phone on the Sprint network.

For GSM, it is different. Cingular and T-Mobile don't care so much, so any UNLOCKED GSM phone should be able to operate on any GSM network - here in the US anyway - by replacing the SIM card.

Unlocked GSM phones should also work in most European countries as well, although I am hearing that Italy is a bit iffy these days. As far as the Far East, who knows. Many of those countries use another standard (WCDMA) which isn't compatible with anything else.

Better is subjective. GSM is available globally, so if you travel out of North America, you go with GSM.

iDen is proprietary and works mostly in North America but in only a very few places outside of North America.

EVO (Sprint/Verizon) is the fastest network in terms of download speed. Verizon has great coverage in the US - and NO roaming outside of North America.

So best depends on:
- Where you work
- Where you live
- Where you travel

The mobile companies are NOT like the power utilities. There are no monopolies. They buy licenses and can put up as many tower sites as they can afford. They compete heavily. In some areas some carriers are much better than others. You have to pick the carrier, based on location and travel, and then pick the model.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; MSIE 3.02; Windows CE; PPC; 240x320) BlackBerry7520/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/103)

Unfortunately the Nextel Blackberries are on the iDEN network which no other carriers in the US support.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; MSIE 3.02; Windows CE; PPC; 240x320) BlackBerry7520/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/103)

Unfortunately the Nextel Blackberries are on the iDEN network which no other carriers in the US support.