WWAN users in Europe?!

[jamess]

I just occured to me, that very few of EU models of ThinkPads have WWAN.

I know 3G/UMTS and HSDPA is available in our country, but certainly not Verizon or Cingular (providers?).

Say that I order a WWAN and don't sign the contract with any of the above, can I still plug my operator's SIM in my computer and use my provider's services or is it "locked" within ThinkPad somehow - such as mobile phones which can only be used with one operator etc...

Thanks for helping me clarify this.

[thormdac]

@jamess,
this is all a question of what kind of wwan module you are using in your machine. i am using an american/us x60t(see signature) containing the sierra wireless mc5720 which only supports 800 and1900 bands( http://www.sierrawireless.com/product/m ... tions.aspx )

these do not work over in europe!

then just yesterday i had an hp nc6400 machine from europe in the office and saw it contained the HP HS2300 HSDPA Broadband Wireless Module. now we unscrewed this machine and found it to be the ....mc5720. we than contacted hp over here and they were 100%sure this card is for european markets. order number from hp:RN005AA
see:http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/de/de/sm ... 90787.html

so we took the card from the nc6400, implanted it into my x60t and ... voila....ERROR 1804. ( ibm is looking into this to see why, no joke!)

one thing to know though: the card is locked to vodaphone! in order to get it unlocked i assume one needs to contact hp, like what you do when you want to unlock your verizon card from ibm.

greetz

[jamess]

thanks for your help. i was guessing that it is locked and that it would have to be unlocked for me to be able to use it with my provider.

thanks again