Digital Mobile Wakeup
 

I went to a Sprint store to change from BellSouth Mobility to Sprint PCS and was told I would also have to buy a new phone! This is apparently because they each have different master control codes on the phones that they don't share. Isn't this how Microsoft first got in hot water with programming codes? My question: is this legal? I have a Nokia phone and have no desire to buy a new one.

Not sure about the legalities of it, but it has been that way with cell phones and pagers ever since I owned them.

Bellsouth network is primarily Digital TDMA with some analog (and some CDMA or GSM, cant remember which)

Sprint is totally CDMA.

As they are technologies developed by different companies (Motorola, Qualcom, etc.) they require different hardware.

There are now multiple choices for Cell phones and for the most part none of the hardware is compatible.