Ben, I thought I'd clarify on some of this info for you since I've had a lot of experience with it.
I personally have no real preference as far as provider or technology. GSM & CDMA are both good and are both WAY Better then IDEN and TDMA. First GSM and IDen phones cannot be disabled. You can report the IMEI as "stolen" which this prevents someone from activating it on their account. However if I have an AT&T GSM Phone (Some AT&T phones are TDMA though which follows the same rules as CDMA) and I find or steal another AT&T phone, all I have to do is put my SIM card in the phone and it's all good. However you cannot take advantage of benefits such as phone insurance or whatever. ESN based phones can be disabled (CDMA - Verizon, Alltel, Sprint, TMDA - some AT&T and other providers). You cannot activate the phone unless it's attached to your account and setup correctly. If you call on the phone they will tell you the phone is unable to be activated. If you take it into a store be activated they will take your phone and tell you sorry. As far as theft of phones SIM Card based phones are stolen MUCH more often, and ESN based phones have a much higher rate of being returned. This is probably based on the fact that the ESN phone will quit working very quickly, and the SIM based one can have their SIM swapped and continue to work. SIM cards having security issues they do, but they are all fairly hard to do and involve social engineering of some sort to accomplish. Finally Cell phone providers don't care if the phone is stolen. They will not notify the authorities, or open up any sort of investigation. The only exception to this rule is if you steal one from an employee (in certain circumstances), or you steal a live one from a store ;) Sean Houston On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 11:19 PM, Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 7:59 PM, Micheal Espinola Jr > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Vulnerable to what though? As if your gonna get your phone back anyhow? > > Well, I guess the theory is, if there is no way a phone can be used > once it is reported stolen, they are less likely to be stolen. I > suspect that's unlikely to be much of a deterent. Criminals are often > caught, yet crime continues. > > Thinking about it further, I see these scenarios: > > Scenario A1: Cingular GSM phone is stolen. Owner reports it stolen. > Cingular locks phone IMEI and SIM out of their system. Thief tries > to use it in US, Cingular traces it, reports it to authorities, thief > is arrested. > > Scenario A2: Cingular customer is traveling overseas. Phone is > stolen. Owner reports it stolen. Cingular locks phone IMEI and SIM > out of their system. Thief uses phone with overseas carrier SIM, not > on Cingular's towers. Thief is not caught. > > Scenario B1: Verizon phone which only works in the US on Verizon's > network is stolen. Owner reports it stolen. Verizon locks phone ESN > out of their system. Thief tries to use it in US, Verizon traces it, > reports it to authorities, thief is arrested. > > Scenario B2: Verizon customer is traveling overseas. Phone is > stolen. Owner reports it stolen. Verizon locks phone out of their > system. Thief is confused when he can't find SIM to remove, realizes > it's a CDMA phone and won't work overseas anyway, throws it away. > Thief is not caught. > > I'm not sure this is really a win. :) > > -- Ben > > ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~ > ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~
