December 29th, 2009 
Patrick Hebert So you bought a BlackBerry a few years ago and your contract is finally up… and there are deals to be had elsewhere! Until recently, your only options were to cancel your service with your old carrier and get a new phone with a new carrier. If you didn’t want to pay $600 for a new BlackBerry, you would also have to sign a new contract for about 36 months in order to get a discount.
Times, and terms, have changed.
Bell and Telus have launched a GSM (different technology) network which means that you may now be able to take your phone with you between carriers. Just check with Bell or Telus first to see if your handset is compatible with their service. Bell offers a handy tool online to lookup whether your phone will work with their service.
If your contract was with Rogers or Fido, chances are good that you can use your current phone on the new Bell and Telus network to take advantage of deals. The key to this freedom is to unlock your phone from your original carrier. There are many services out there that offer to unlock cell phones and if you’re technically inclined you might even be able to do it yourself with a little time, patience and the right unlock code.
If you’re like the rest of us though and want to use your cell phone on another network without learning rocket science, you might benefit from using a service such as Unique Phones which will provide you with the appropriate unlock code for your phone for a reasonable fee.
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[...] The new Bell/Telus GSM network is online and you can use an unlocked GSM (Rogers, Fido, AT&T, T-Mobile) cell phone with them provided that it is compatible. Read more here. [...]