The Verizon Thunderbolt manufactured by HTC is one of the early CDMA/LTE mobile devices on the market. An interesting question in this regard is whether it has a SIM card or not. Remember, CDMA devices usually do not have a SIM card. But LTE is a 3GPP technology just like GSM and UMTS where SIM cards are part of every device. So what about the Thunderbolt which includes both technology branches!? I would have speculated it doesn't have one. Why bother, Verizon has its own LTE band so the device will only run on Verizon's network!?
But strangely enough, the Thunderbolt does have a SIM card as shown in this Youtube video. While showing the SIM card the reviewer mentions that CDMA service is still available when the SIM card is removed. In other words, the SIM is only used for the LTE part of the device.
Very interesting indeed.
The card is a UICC with CSIM ( http://www.3gpp2.org/Public_html/specs/C.S0065-B_v1.0_cdma2000_Application_for_UICC.pdf) for CDMA and USIM for LTE.
Posted by: Mike | May 01, 2011 at 06:27 AM