Palm Pre hacked and running on Verizon
By Nilay Patel 
posted July 10th 2009 11:55AM
posted July 10th 2009 11:55AM
[Via PreCentral]
posted July 10th 2009 11:55AM
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Must have been brief. Back in 98 or so, it was CDMA...going along with that crystal clear pin drop talking campaign. Sprint PCS was new to Indy when I jumped on (then later went to Tmob).
I'm of the opinion though that Homeland Security goofed big time after 9/11 in NOT forcing all networks to use GSM, and then take over the towers or handle control in a fashion similar to the current internet structure. Aside from the big brother evil aspects, the good uses would include cell tower specific weather and amber alerts that could be texted out to anyone in that area. You also wouldn't need 4 towers in one location for the 4 major carriers, just a beefier network and more towers, but definitely nowhere near 4x as many. There's just too much needless overlap and waste
One network would mean you shop for a phone, then find a carrier for service, unlike the messed up system we have today. But it sure is great for business, locking you in by phone more or less.
Kumar:
Requiring GSM would have stifled innovation for starters. CDMA is better than TDMA (which was used in GSM 1G and 2G), especially when it comes to adding more towers (which you speak of).
And the stuff you list about sending information from towers is not tied to GSM in any way. The signalling system in no way determines what data can be sent over it.
Sprint was CDMA before they went nationwide, maybe people in some regions had GSM Sprint before the nationwide rollout.
The reason we select phones and networks has nothing to do with technology. It's because of the business models the providers have chosen. Parts of Europe are switching to the US model (exclusive phones) right now, by the way (which sucks) and it isn't because they suddenly adopted CDMA2000. It's because of the iPhone and other smartphones and the perceived advantage the carriers see to being the only ones who offer a particular phone.
You are seriously mistaken, Sprint was never GSM, in fact, I have an old Sprint PDA phone from when Sprint was Sprint PCS (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PDA2032SP-N). It clearly shows CDMA on the back of the phone. Sprint has always had a CDMA/GSM world travel ready device, today Sprint only have a couple devices. Here is a list of all the old CDMA devices: http://www.sprint.com/business/resources/schedule/pdf/pcs_handsets.pdf That was during PCS.
What the hell was the point of it?
This is why I will never use or recommend Verizon. I shouldn't have to beg them to let me use a compatible device on their network.
i feel the same way. really is the wrong way to run a business.
I totally agree with you... but Verizon not having the Palm Pre isn't exactly Verizon's fault.
att is the same in a way...what i mean is that there shouldn't be a winmo, iphone, and bb data plan - there's no reason i shouldn't be able to take my sim card out of one, put it in another and have it work, but if you have an iphone sim and drop it in a bb, only voice and sms will work...sad days
Verizon is the best network where I live. I'm excited to see this because I'm certain when Verizon gets its grubby little hands on the Pre it will hamstring it.
I'm getting tired of my Win Mo phone. The hardware is just.... dated, very dated.
I see no video.
to all the haters your all dumb ass's this is the real deal i watched him do it in front of me, just because you don't have the balls or the skills it is not a reason to hate.
I need them to add a feature to the Pre that allows you to tap the picture icon of the person you're texting when you want to give them a quick call.
Sometimes I get a text asking, "Are you free? Call me"
I would love to just tap on their picture/icon when I open the text and immediately call them instead of going through my contacts.
press the call button while the text is open?
If the phone doesn't do that then it should. But there are a lot of things the Pre should do that it doesn't so I wouldn't be surprised.
This is personally exciting for one reason: I'm on chintzy-ass Sprint and they won't allow a SERO account to use the Pre (or any other feature-rich device that comes out and is desirable), instead trying to strong-arm SERO customers into paying more money for less service. Maybe if these hacks work on CDMA, SERO customers such as myself will have an opportunity to upgrade our phones.
Keep on keeping on, hacker brethren!
gHost
Only reason I couldn't see this working is that it would involve ESN cloning, which is quite illegal. You'd have to trick Sprint into thinking you were running another phone (say, a Treo 755 or something,) and I'm pretty sure there's a federal law against doing that.
When the Pre was announced I was really hoping for this as i had worries about Sprint coverage, but so far since taking the plunge I've had no issues at home (Orlando) and whilst traveling. Now was Verizon better? Probably, I see alot of 2 and 3 bars on Sprint as opposed to 4 and 5's on VZ, but from a usablility standpoint things have been fine.
Plus saving about $25 a month while still getting more minutes and a protection plan helps too.
Who cares? You can do with a Sprint activated Palm Pre already. Just turn on data roaming and your good to roam on verizon whenever you want. Sure the data isn't 3g, but its better then this hack thats no data at all.
But then you're paying for Sprint service and a lot of people would rather have Verizon, and not have to pay roaming charges.
@BrokenMonkey
I'm on Sprint. What are Roaming charges? I don't pay roaming charges. Do you pay roaming charges with Verizon??? That sucks. There's no Verizon here, but there is Alltel (same thing these days I guess, but whatever). Sprint doesn't have EVDO here, but Alltel does. Roaming only option on my Treo Pro and EVDO data works great? YUP.
So I guess all I have to say is this:
IM IN UR NETWORK, USIN IT FREE (well, not free, but at no extra cost.)
Hopefully this sends a message to Verizon. My Voyager is getting old and crappier as time goes on.
Well that was me who made the video, Sorry for the blurry video camera the auto-focus on my camera was shot. =)
Old news - it was (supposedly) done on 6/29
http://www.howardforums.com/showpost.php?p=12762615&postcount=171
tonycortes has (supposedly) had his pre on Cricket since before 6/24, including tethering.
http://www.howardforums.com/showpost.php?p=12742212&postcount=15
damn you verizon! i dont know why though
Can't you just dial *22801 or something like that and get the automated system to activate a foreign ESN/MEID? Or does that option have to be built into the software you're running for OTA activations? I know when I swapped a touch pro from Sprint to VZW thats all we had to do, no worrying about talking to a rep.
Pity Vista doesn't run on it, it would give me a beautiful experience, oh yes.
I spoke to Verizon last week. The woman confirmed that they will have the Pre in late 09 or early 10. She said there were discussions about Android, but no time frame. And she also said that the iPhone was probably not going to happen.