Appreciate comments from anyone who has traveled with an 8830 to South Korea.

I know that Sprint has roaming agreement on CDMA network for voice service. But, they claim they do not have roaming agreement for data.

My question is -- is it possible to force a Sprint 8830 to data roam in South Korea? Or, am I stuck because Sprint lacks the agreements and the PRL doesn't reflect any data roaming partners there?

Thanks.

You roam on CDMA or GSM? if its GSM you can check the sprint international page International Roaming and see what services are listed there. Since your device is unlocked, if you are using GSM, you can pop in a local SIM that allows blackberry data and use that. you wouldnt have your Sprint phone number, but you would get data.

Pretty sure Korea and Japan are the exceptions to the rule. No GSM (except maybe at airports). No CDMA data; the 8707 should work there, but that doesn't help here.

I was at the airport on Saturday for five hours waiting for my connecting flight and could not get data.

What airport please?

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Did you by any chance use the SEARCH function? If not, you might want to check it out. Been discussed many times. Here is what I found on the first try:

I know this is Verizon and you said Sprint.

"KDDI has EV-DO service in the 1700 or 1800 MHz band (i can't remember which, I just know it is the same as KTF in South Korea). VZW uses 850 and 1900 MHz. Thus, VZW can't roam on KDDI.

Addtionally, if roaming service was available in Japan with a CDMA phone, then VZW's site would list it as a coverage area, which it does not."

Incheon Airport in Seoul..

I was there five hours last weekend and could not get Data. When I called Verizon upon returning to the States, the said they were working on roaming agreements due to strong customer demand..

Who knows..

For Sprint Seoul South Korea - Blackberry-8830, Digital dual band, PCS Voice
For Vzw they list only phone, no data support, on their site

It seems the "world phone" isn't so world-ly afterall. :(

It seems that Japan and Korea use different technology that the rest of the world. Seems like this is very well known. The 8830 works where there is GSM and/or CDMA technology available. Not everywhere in the world. It will also not work in an area where you carrier does not have a roaming agreement.

[quote=brianky2;838000]Appreciate comments from anyone who has traveled with an 8830 to South Korea.

Just got back from Seoul and BB8830WE did not work, When will RIM make a phone that will work in Japan and Korea?

Only the 8707 works in Seoul. I use it here off T-Mobile and it works great on Korea's SKTelecom and KTF's 3G networks - it's really fast by the way!!! I hate going back to NY and dealing with the slow GPRS speeds... oh well.

I spent several days on a lecture tour of South Korea earlier this month and my VZW 8830 had CDMA voice coverage everywhere my Korean colleagues had service from Seoul to Busan. There was no data service anywhere.

Korea uses CDMA similar to US CDMA. Japan uses a totally different system. As a word of advice for frequent travelers, VOIP is much less expensive than RIP off international cell rates. Whenever I travel overseas or to Canada for that matter, I bring a LinkSys WIP330 VOIP handset and a mini-WiFi router. I try to find an open hot spot. If not and my hotel doesn't have WiFi, I just plug in the router and use it for my computer and WiFi. The cost of internet is trivial compared to the cost of a 10 minutes international cell call.

I was in Seoul about a month ago and my 8830 started chiming! downloading emails. it didn't do that in my prior trips. i just checked sprint website and indeed they are saying 1X data roaming is available at $2/Mb

-hchon