So as people know, Verizon, also a CDMA carrier, is going to issue an OTA update which will let Galaxy S3 owners take their phones around the world, including to GSM countries. I called up Sprint and asked them: if Sprint wanted to, could they do the same, and the guy told me that if they wanted to, they could. Now LTE is a GSM based technology, which means that any LTE phone has GSM capabilities either enabled or disabled in part. I switched from a Photon, which I still own, in part knowing that this could happen. But the Photon doesn't have LTE or SVDO. The GS3 does have a SIM card, but the plastic cover in the battery case covers, or embeds it.
I found a petition online seeking to encourage Sprint to do the same. Shouldn't this be a part of the Network Vision, to give customers as many reasons to stay with Sprint as possible?