The Unofficial 7-Eleven Speak Out Wireless Canada Consumer Page 
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1:09 pm
just got a 5200, but since i was previously bell, can you explain why the sim cards seem so valued? (someone said you can sell it,,,,or put it in another phone)
not sure why people are moving between rogers and speak out...
tx
1:38 pm
March 15, 2008
Offline
why the sim cards seem so valued?
With Bell there are no SIM cards. Instead information like the cellphone carrier and the subscriber's phone number is associated with the phone they provide you. You cannot change phones unless they approve it and make it so.
With GSM systems like SO, a SIM card is used to make these associations. In principle you can change phones simply by moving the SIM. (Assuming the phones are either unlocked or locked to the same network...)
not sure why people are moving between rogers and speak out
You will find all sorts of reasons in this forum but the two most important are that SO's airtime costs are lower and they last longer than Rogers.
7:25 pm
October 21, 2008
Offline
The SIM cards are so valued because you can't get them directly from Speakout.
With Rogers and Fido, you can call them up and they will be happy to take your $25-$35 or so and send you a card so you can use their service with an existing phone you may have. Or, like most pay as you go clients, you can buy a phone from them and they'll include a SIM card with it. As well, Rogers and Fido have a decent selection of decent phones.
But since the pay-as-you-go rates are cheaper with Speakout, many people choose to use Speakout over any of the other guys
Speakout (and PetroCanada Mobility, since they are run by the same company) do not sell their SIM cards separately for some reason. PLUS the phones that Speakout offers do not generally have all the bells and whistles, so many people would prefer to be able to buy a Speakout SIM card (instead of the phone and SIM together) and just stick the SIM card in the GSM phone of their choosing. Why spend $74 for a phone and SIM, when you're just going to toss the phone in a drawer and forget about it, when you can buy a SIM card off of someone for well under $74.
With Bell (and Solo, Virgin, Presidents Choice Mobile) and Telus (and Koodo, Mike Network) this issue never comes up because they don't have the ability to easily change phones since they use CDMA phones instead of GSM. With the Bell and Telus networks you have to get your new phone programed from Bell/Telus if you want to change phones. With GSM the 'brains' of the phone are on the SIM card, so you can easily move the SIM from one phone to the other whenever you want to change phones.
