Travel Technology - Help, please: International texting on blackberry 8830 (Sprint)

I'm pretty happy with my sprint blackberry 8830, but have had trouble texting internationally. Was wondering if anyone could help diagnose what I may be doing wrong, as I'm heading to london tonight.

Past experience:

UK- GSM- was able to send and receive with mobal SIM in, but send only with Sprint SIM (IIRC)

Brazil- GSM (both SIMs) and roaming CDMA- no luck at all texting

(I have data while roaming turned off, if that matters)

Thanks!

Hmmm... If data while roaming is off, then perhaps the 8830 is setup to send SMS through GPRS instead of the SMS service center? In your options panel, scroll down to SMS Text and check what the "network to send over" is set to.

If data is turned off, it can't be set to anything other than GSM.

Of course, I don't have an 8330 here, so the menu may look a little different...

With our T-Mobile service, we had to call and have international texting turned on. Beware, texts are $0.45; unlimited texting does not apply internationally. (At least on T-Mobile)

Thanks for the replies, and sorry for the delay- didn't go online/check e-mail the entire mem. day weekend, so running behind.

This uk trip, used mobal sim only- text messages worked fine in both directions.

Scott- don't see "network to send over" listed- just see:
-disable auto text
- delivery reports
- priority
- service center
- callback number
- number of previous items

I use FishText.com (http://www.fishtext.com) for sending international text messages. I use it all the time to text my brother in Canada as it only costs 2 cents per message and is quite easy to use from my phone and my laptop!

newbie for blackberry 8830 and in italy now. activated the unlimited data plan before <i left but turned out the sim card was not. so hubby in the US called Sprint and was activated - all working now except the sms - screen displays " unidentified subscriber" everytime i try to send. Response from sprint was "text is not guaranteed abroad, nothing else wrong." and that i should just keep trying. is this true? any other suggestions? my format is correct. Used t mob for intl txt before and never had problems.
thanks

International texting to/from CDMA phones has always been problematic. REcently Verizon has improved the ability to do so (presumably borrowing on its connections with Vodafone), but CDMA is still far behind GSM providers on the number of supported carriers. I have a friend who is Lebanese with Sprint and cannot text his brother who lives in the UK or his his sister who lives in Dubai.

Fishtext will give you a virtual UK number which can receive text messages, but I think it is like $10 a month for the virtual number. I don't know much about it. Google Voice's free number will receive and send international text messages (free during the beta), but it is hard to get the invite. Moreover, Google doesn't have a non-web notice that you got the text message. There really needs to be a google map application.

"Fishtext will give you a virtual UK number which can receive text messages, but I think it is like $10 a month for the virtual number. "

I just looked and it's €15 a year for a virtual number, which you can use if you don't have a mobile phone number of your own to use FishText with. Alternatively, you can download it for free to your existing phone number.