I don't know the technical aspects, but a Qwest rep told me the phones are programmed different for Qwest use only. I do know you can't unlock a CDMA phone, that applies only to GSM (Att & T-Mo). I heard that a CDMA phone can be "Flashed" so it works on another CDMA carrier. you get voice only in most cases, and some of the features may not work.

There has been talk of carriers releasing the network info so a CDMA phone can be used with another carrier, but I haven't heard of anyone actually doing it yet.