Hi guys,
Easy questions I hope:
I've never (yet) got into the area of unlocking phones and I would appreciate someone just answering a couple of questions to make sure I've got the general idea of unlocking.
1.
Am I right in thinking that you have to unlock a phone so that you can use a different provider's SIM card - instead of using one that is provided at purchase time?
e.g if I have an XDA supplied by O2, I could unlock the XDA and then use a SIM card from T Mobile?
2.
Do I need to unlock my phone EVERY time I put a SIM card from a different provider in it? Or once the phone is unlocked I do not need to do it again?
e.g. If I unlock my XDA, put in an O2 SIM card, and then go on a flight abroad, can I simply pull out the O2 card and pop in one from a local shop in a different country?
3.
Do I need to keep a record of anything before I unlock it?
e.g. Are any settings needed to be recorded BEFORE YOU START in order to unlock the phone ? Do I need to record information so that in the future I can put things back exactly as they originally were.
4.
Is there any differences between unlocking phones that have PAYG or CONTRACT cards? Are there any issues here?
Thanks for answers
Anne
In the USA a un-locked fone will bring more money used or new. and also has a wider seller/buyer market.
Once unlocked that's it. any sim anytime.
we have 5 fones between the two of us ( me and my better 1/2)
2 nokia's, a palm treo, a behold and a behold II (rooted 12/1/2009)
We have just our personal sim cards from T mobile (one each) we work weird, REALLY wierd hours. Some times our smart fones don't get charged or go dead while we are out. We just pop the sim cad into one that's got enough juice to get one of the "better" fones charged.
We both rely on our fones for our jobs.
A little know fact: in the USA it's a federal law. IF you bought your fone legitamatly. IE: not stolen. the carrier must provide you with the un-lock code in 24 hours.
The people that pay 15.00 or more to have a fone unlocked are either. Un-aware of that law. In a country where it's illegal to unlock a fone. Or knowingly have a stolen fone.
1: So yes you are right you need to un-lock the fone to use another provides fone with your sim.
2: You un-lock the fone once any sim card will work after that. AGAIN your right. (provided your in a country that has the same GSM 3g 4g network)
3: ALWAYS keep a written log of any "admin" #'s given to you for a fone.
the behold has a admin # that lets you turn on all kinds of things that are "off" out of the box. and you need that # everytime you make a adminastrative change. This maybe true with other fones as well.
4: I don't know about pay as you go. I would think once unlocked you would be able to use the fone pay as you go, so long as you had minutes on the sim installed.
I'm sure there are alot of people here that know alot more than me, and can help you further. I just got back into the cell fone game about a year ago and was out of it for about 10 years.
Things have really changed, then again they really haven't changed.
HTH
Later
Rich
One thing of note is that just because a GSM phone is unlocked, doesn't mean it'll work with every carrier, as carriers will sometimes use different baseband frequencies (there are four, 850, 900, 1800, 1900mHz I think) and some phones only support 2-3 our of 4.
I'm in Canada for example, where Rogers and Fido support GSM networks (phones that use SIM cards), Bell and Telus use CDMA (phones that have ESNs programmed into them). So if I buy a Sony Xperia X1 for example, I have to be sure to buy the American version, as Rogers only supports 850mHz, and the European version of the X1 will only support 900mHz. So even if I unlock the european version of the X1, I can't use it on Rogers in Canada.
I'm guessing you're from the UK, where the market is even more diversified. 3 Mobile for example, can only use phones that support 3G (or HSDPA). A good place to look for such specs, after finding out what frequencies your carrier supports, is GSM Arena.
Related
Hey all,
I have the Bell unlimited mobile browser with my Samsung Impact. I used to have an HTC Touch that was older, but had much better capabilities with the umb but unfortunately was damaged. If I were to get, say an unlocked Samsung Galaxy and put my sim card and and enter the proper asn settings, would Bell know I'm not using my Impact and charge me data rates? Thank you
Amazing, I am literally in the exact same scenario. I had an HTC touch, it broke, bought an impact because I was told it was the highest level of phone that could still use the Unlimited Browser.
I am looking at a Samsung wave. I talked to customer service, and the woman told me that I could use my wave by simply switching the sim card, and still access the browser. She said she uses a blackberry smartphone, and it works that way. But I havent bought the wave yet, so I havent verified this. I guess I will find out once I attempt it. Have you gotten any info back on your question?
The way carriers know which phone your using, in general, is they have a database of IMEI numbers. But only the phones that they sell you directly (the ones with their branding) are in their database. So if you, for example, took an unlocked Roger's phone and put a Bell SIM card into it, they wouldn't know what phone you're using. But if you put your Bell SIM into a Bell Galaxy S (even if it's unlocked), they would know and probably alert you that you need to change your plan. This is how AT&T caught iPhone users on the cheaper feature-phone data plans over here in the states.
tl;dr: As long as the phone you want to use doesn't have Bell branding on it, they won't know.
Hi... my first post here, but have been following this forum for a while and have found it to be extremely informative. I finally need some help with a couple of questions I cannot find answers to.
I have an AT&T Skyrocket that I have unlocked via cellunlocker. To my surprise, I've encountered the RAT restriction which has been discussed all over this very forum.
I have two "pay as you go" world roaming sim cards that I've used without any problems for years with a very lame unlocked Blackberry. These sim cards seem to automatically select the correct service provider to work with the negotiated rates/plans that are incorporated into the sim plans I purchased.
I leave from California to europe in a few days and was hoping to take the unlocked skyrocket and roaming sim cards with me. With this RAT restriction, I'm not sure what will happen when I arrive in europe and start the phone up.
My questions are these...
Does the sim card select the provider automatically, or is the at&t rom/radio pre-programmed to only select the at&t contracted providers, even though the phone is "unlocked"?
If I flash the Rogers radio to the phone, will I have to manually select the provider in each country (for instance, in the UK I know it should be on O2), or will the sim tell the phone which to select?
Worst case scenario, I take the old blackberry with me instead... but was hoping to try the skyrocket out overseas.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Gordes.
Well if your sim is for international use than it will select the carrier for you if not change apn and that will most likely resolve ur problem. Might help after flashing different modems/radios.
gordes said:
Hi... my first post here, but have been following this forum for a while and have found it to be extremely informative. I finally need some help with a couple of questions I cannot find answers to.
I have an AT&T Skyrocket that I have unlocked via cellunlocker. To my surprise, I've encountered the RAT restriction which has been discussed all over this very forum.
I have two "pay as you go" world roaming sim cards that I've used without any problems for years with a very lame unlocked Blackberry. These sim cards seem to automatically select the correct service provider to work with the negotiated rates/plans that are incorporated into the sim plans I purchased.
I leave from California to europe in a few days and was hoping to take the unlocked skyrocket and roaming sim cards with me. With this RAT restriction, I'm not sure what will happen when I arrive in europe and start the phone up.
My questions are these...
Does the sim card select the provider automatically, or is the at&t rom/radio pre-programmed to only select the at&t contracted providers, even though the phone is "unlocked"?
If I flash the Rogers radio to the phone, will I have to manually select the provider in each country (for instance, in the UK I know it should be on O2), or will the sim tell the phone which to select?
Worst case scenario, I take the old blackberry with me instead... but was hoping to try the skyrocket out overseas.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Gordes.
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Click to collapse
Hello everyone:
I am a chinese,I bought a Trophy(Verizon) from Ebay,but it is locking,and I can not use the GSM function.
The I contact sellers on Ebay who can unlock the HTC phone,but they said my phone's IMEI can not be found from htc unlock code's datebase ,so they can't find the unlock code.
It mean the IMEI was Not Found On Database or it is Not Available.
Have any methods can unlock my phone's GSM network?
I hope someone can give me a help.
Best regards.
TKS.
Does the phone not have the option to toggle to GSM mode, or does it just not work? It should be under Settings -> Cellular.
I don't think the Verizon Trophy is even SIM-locked in the first place. At least, not in the usual sense. However, I have heard a rumor that they block it from being used on the USA GSM carriers, T-Mobile (US) and AT&T.
If you're able to take it to a Verizon store, they can probably remove any unlocks on the device. They may or may not be willing to do so for free, but they probably *can*.
Out of curiosity, why in the world buy a predominantly CDMA phone (even if it has a GSM mode in addition) if you're a GSM user? There are plenty of GSM Windows Phones, most of which are arguably better designs too. Verizon users around here hate that the Trophy is the only phone available to them, and I truly sympathize.
when I select the GSM model and put in a SIM card of CMCC,It display:
This SIM card can only be used on specific networks.Contact your customer service center for the unlock code.
So it's should be a GSM network lock.
You only have 2 options first you need to find the way to bring it back to Verizon to unlock the phone but if you're in China right now that probably impossible.
Now the second option is to buy the unlock code on eBay. I have no idea why you phone couldn't unlock did you ask the right seller? Because HTC Trophy actually have 2 version one is European and the other one is US (CDMA and GSM) You may need to try other sellers if you can find them.
I have HTC Trophy Verizon and my brother also has one he went back home and unlock the phone before left US and it works fine with GSM/UMT.
Hello all, I have an HTC One M8 that I bought while working in the US for a year. I am back in Canada and want to use it with Rogers or Bell doesn't matter who. I thought it was unlocked so I could use with anything but apparently I was miss-guided.
When I put in a Rogers SIM card it says SIM from Unknown Source or something along those lines. When I go into about in settings I can see that it picks up the signal for rogers and also shows my cell phone number. I'm guessing there is some sort of way I can make this thing work here?
Can I overwrite the ROM and put a Rogers ROM in? I have no clue. This is about as far as I get with phone tech.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Hi!
Verizon M8 is sold "internationally unlocked", so Verizon customers can use it everywhere in the world: not just the CDMA networks (Verizon's) but also in GSM networks (most widely spread standard). I live in Spain and mine works in a GSM/LTE network perfectly and it does too in France, Germany or Italy.
For your mobile to work in Canada, you have to make sure your phone is sim unlocked. If you purchased it to verizon you can ask them to remotely unlock it, as you've paid for it, and they will. They may take some time, but they will. Once it is sim unlocked, you will be able to use it with any other operator's sim.
Note that, even when it is sim unlocked (and functional), you may be receiving a notification of "unknown sim" when the phone starts and an icon in the tray. It's just a software issue, as it will work, but to make it dissapear you have to do much more complicated things (unlock the bootloader, get root privileges) and i'm not sure it is worth if you're not familiarized with these sort of things.
Need to go overseas for a few weeks and need to unlock an S8 plus so I can use the phone over there. I'm still under installment plan for another year so they refused to unlock my phones.
I don't want to root the phone since I use samsung pay a lot. Any other way to unlock the phone but keeping it as stock as possible?
Global roaming works well and is free! It is in many countries. Free 2G data as well as .20 per call. Log into your account and see if it's enabled, if not enable it and profit.
https://www.sprint.com/en/shop/services/global-roaming.html
Dave
Talk with Sprint directly and tell them what you need. They should be able to understand that you need your phone unlocked to use it with a local SIM card.
Moreover, I recommend you also check if you can use other (foreign) GSM SIM card with your phone that is from Sprint (CDMA). These are two different technologies, but your new Samsung should be able to accept both GSM and CDMA.
RossTeagan said:
Talk with Sprint directly and tell them what you need. They should be able to understand that you need your phone unlocked to use it with a local SIM card.
Moreover, I recommend you also check if you can use other (foreign) GSM SIM card with your phone that is from Sprint (CDMA). These are two different technologies, but your new Samsung should be able to accept both GSM and CDMA.
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Click to collapse
You would think it's that easy right? Spoke to 3 reps and a manager and all shot me down. Said they changed their policy a few months ago and can no longer do so.
The S8 is a CDMA/GSM phone....
dannieboiz said:
You would think it's that easy right? Spoke to 3 reps and a manager and all shot me down. Said they changed their policy a few months ago and can no longer do so.
The S8 is a CDMA/GSM phone....
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Click to collapse
I wasn't aware of this policy shift.
I suggest you insert a GSM SIM card in your phone and check if it's asking/prompting for something, anything and if recognizes the SIM card.
If uou still need help msg me