Phone from Ebay with Telus?
 

This has probably been answered many times but I couldn't find an answer.

Anyways, if I buy a phone off ebay and its something like a samsung omnia or other smartphone type, do you have to have a data plan just to activate the phone?

Does telus know that it has data capability when you try to activate it and then they don't activate it unless you buy a data plan?

The reason I ask it because it would be great to have a pda combined with a phone but I don't want a phone with internet access.

Cant be a GSM phone aka sim card

Short answer is no, never, nada. Most phones you find online will be GSM/HSPA, so that's the wrong network type to begin with. If you do find, say, a Bell or Verizon or Sprint or KDDI au phone, Telus won't let it on its network. Might work if it's another Telus phone though, not 100% sure.

I mean with a CDMA phone.
Can you get those phones "unlocked"? (I have no idea what that means but I assume it means it is good to use with any network)

Yes, they can be unlocked, but Telus will not allow any phone that isn't theirs on their network. It's not that simple to get even an unlocked CDMA phone on another carrier, requires crazy network engineering kung fu that's probably illegal lol

Save your money...Telus won't allow any non-Telus phone on their network.

CDMA uses ESN/MEID to activate phones onto the network and Telus only activates known ESNs (aka. Telus Phones)

And if you're buying a used Telus phone, make sure it's not a stolen phone, otherwise you have some explaining to do when you call Telus trying to activate a ESN reported stolen.

don't do it

Telus has the samsung omnia.
the most important thing u need to do is check with telus that the ESN number is good to use.

If you activate the phone on your acct, you wont have to have a data plan cus you got the phone yourself.