CTIA 2005

Like I mentioned for reasons stated in the new Part 2, I complied with LG's request and covered up the carrier logo on the F7200 keypad.

I'm sure some of you also noticed that it said "Cingular" on the display, and I did not cover that up...

That was intentional. It was not an oversight, and is not any kind of "cheating" with LG's request.

The deal is... what a GSM phone says on the screen is not necessarily the carrier that brands and sells that phone. Depending on how the phone and/or SIM chip are configured, the name on the screen is usually that of the carrier that sold the SIM, or the current network the phone may be roaming on.

So the fact that it says "Cingular" on the screen means very little and doesn't necessarily gives away anything.

For example, I have an unlocked but Cingular-branded RAZR that I use with T-Mobile. Because it has a T-Mobile SIM and is on the T-Mobile network, it says "T-Mobile" on the screen, even though it's a "Cingular phone".

As part of my job, I see a lot of phones at a lot of trade shows, and I can tell you that it's very common for the PR folks to put just any old SIM they have lying around in the phones they show off. Seeing phones show the "wrong" carrier name on the screen is very common at trade shows.