I see a lot of messages about unlocking the 8830 for use of other sim cards but does anyone know if I can use the supplied SIM card that came with the 8830 on an unlocked GSM phone or GSM blackberry here in NA or overseas?

Why? Just curious. I don't have an unlocked GMS phone or blackberry to test this.

Yes, the phone is natively locked to the supplied sim from vze but your rates are MUCH higher. Using a local sim you can pay as little as 5 - 10 cents a minute for calls while overseas. Using the VZW sim, its 1.29 a min all the way up to 4.99 per minute depending on the country. Now that GSM roaming, if you are doing CDMA roaming its like 69 cents a minute and goes up from there but then again it all depends on the country you are in.

I took the vodafone/vzw sim out of the 8830 and tried it in an unlocked 8700c here in the US and all I got was SOS.

I dont know what to tell you there my friend. It maybe a propritary sim card...if they exist OR it could be due to the fact that since we use CDMA here in the states, if it tries to get on a US GSM network it freaks out maybe?

In your original post, i thought you were asking about using other sim cards in the 8830, sorry bro. BTW why would you want to use the VZW / vodafone sim overseas? The rates are VERY high as compared to a local or global sim?

Just using the vodafone/vzw sim for overseas data. I have pre-paid sims and an unlocked 8700c for calling.

The 8830 does not have the right GSM frequency for the US market. So there is no way to test out your sim card until you go abroad. I believe this was done to force using the CDMA network at home.

Hey LG, here is another option Prepaid Data SIM card

Its a prepaid data sim. It will have a spain intl' phone number and the data rates is 5.00/MB (euro)

Also when you buy this sim it comes with 24 Euro's (34 USD) preloaded on the sim card. This may be a better option as you will not have to keep switching sim cards to do different things. Check the rates for the country that you are going to.