The new Blackberry/Palm/misc. smartphone ban on Page Plus What works/doesn't.

[identified800]

February 5, 2010, Page Plus put into a ban on "All Blackberries. All Treos. Until further notice." This was apparently caused by a billing problem with those devices that was costing them a lot of time and money to deal with.

After the ban, PPC employees/CS reports that the drain on their time from Crackberry/Treo users has gone away but that doesn't help the users and dealers left stranded by this new additional ban (earlier in January, a ban was put on Verizon prepaid phones that are new or have been activated on the Verizon prepaid network for less then six months from being allowed to be put on by dealers. Apparently, PPC CS can still activate said phones). There is no word from PPC one way or another if this ban is temporary or not.

A lot of PPC dealers got left holding the bag because not only were BBs and Treos caught in the ban but so were other phones. Mostly older non Meid HTCs . Some dealers specifically refuse to activate the XV6700, 6800, 6900 (Touch) and 5800 (Libra) and any and all variants including the Sprint ones. A few will only activate dumbphones period. You can tell they aren't members of cdmagurus or the new Mobile-Files.US. LOL.

The ban was supposedly aimed only at Verizon devices but from what we've seen, ALL Blackberries from any carrier (with a few exceptions) and ALL Palm devices , including all Palm OS, Web OS and Winmo phones have been proven to consistently fail activation with the sole known exception of Sprint Palm Centroes (No failures yet).

Basically almost every Samsung i series smartphone, most Motorola (Q, Q9 c/m, Droid) and a single Pantech (PN820) have been proven to be exempt from the ban. Though Droid activation failures have been reported, I can't confirm or deny those.

One easy way for non tech oriented dealers to survive the massacre in value to their stock (those who know how to flash have lots of other markets of course, like Cricket)
is to just get another Verizon mvno that allows full Verizon byod to cover the now blunted byod at Page Plus.

Other Verizon mvos that allow FULL Byod on ANY phone including ALL models currently banned by PPC include: Mingo Wireless, Black Dog Wireless, Lucky Wireless, H20 Cdma, Air Voice Express. The first three have monthly plans with full postpaid Verizon coverage and data options. The last two are paygo only with no mms/data options.

None are true unlimited (except a BD Wireless plan with 59.99 unlimited talk/text /50 megs web, full Verizon footprint but SAME byod limitations as PPC) and at least BD and Lucky have bis/bes plans too.

Hoping the ban on PPC is temporary. The good thing about PPC vs any other Verizon mvno is that it still allows almost any other cdma carrier on their system including USCC, Sprint, Cellular South, Bell, Telus, etc as long as you cdmaguru that phone right which is something that most other Verizon mvnos do not allow. BD Wireless allows Alltels with no flashing. Air Voice Express says they do too. Mingo is offically "Verizon phones only".
Assume the others are too.

[karlo2012]

Thanks for the information because I was wondering why the only palm device listed on the Page Plus website was the Treo 755 i think it was. I bought a Pre Plus online from CL (60 bux) hoping I could get it activated & use it. I did some searching, made sure the ESN was clean since it had been on the verizon network before & signed up with Page Plus online. It didn't have my phone listed in the drop-down so I chose Treo 755. Nothing worked for a half a day until I called Page Plus for activation help. I didn't tell them what phone I had but the rep got everything working. If anyone else decides to try this, make sure email & all other web apps are set to manual connection (I've got GPS on manual also) otherwise you'll use up the 25 or 50 MB of data really quick & end up having to purchase another card. I use WiFi for online access..if you run out of data, WiFi wont even work until you add another card. I used the 1200 voice/text since it came with 50 MB of data. I may check out BD Wireless too. It would be great to have unlimited data without paying so much.