Nextel Direct Connect/walkie-talkie service is a digital two-way radio built into every Nextel phone. I guess this is why Nextel will claim that any other unlocked phone will not work on their network. But this is not so. The a360 will work the only thing is that the direct connect feature will not work at all as it would not have been installed on your phone. All you should have to do is to change the SIM and the phone should lock unto their network (providing that the phone is unlocked to another network). However my advice to you is that if you really want to join the Nextel network then you should buy a phone from them as it stands right now; you tend to save a lot more on calls using their copyrighted feature called direct connect.
But the bottom line is that it is your choice as to what you want to do because the phone will work once the SIM is switched but the direct connect feature will not work at all because the software/hardware isn't installed on your phone. Here is some general information for you. A SIM card is a universally designed card.
By that I mean that it has one design that makes it universal in that it can fit into any SIM card slot on any phone. In theory; if it fits, it should work right?? Wrong. The thing is that Networks often lock their phones onto their network.
So lets say you buy a phone from AT&T, then that phone will be locked to their network. In the same way if you purchase a phone from Nextel then that phone will be locked unto Nextel network. So as you can imagine, it's the phones that are locked unto their respected networks. Thus if you were to buy a AT&T phone and try putting in a Nextel SIM then it won' t be able to log unto the Nextel network, because the phone will be locked to the AT&T network. Understanding now Celeste? The only way a phone will be able to work on multiple networks is if you purchased a phone that is not locked. To do this you have to buy a phone from an independent dealer and not from one of the networks themselves.
In that way the phone will not be locked to any network and as such it will be able to log onto any available network for which the SIM is programmed for. In the same way if you have more than one phone that is locked unto the same network such as Nextel, then you can change the SIM cards between them and they would work just as fine because they are all connected to the same network.
Victor Epand is an expert agent for BuyCellularPhones.info, a huge cellphone superstore featuring great prices and rebates on cellphones including Motorola, Samsung, Nokia, Audiovox, LG, RIM Blackberry, Sanyo, Sony Ericsson, and others.
