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.
Related
I have a HTC Pro Touch phone that was my company phone for about two months before Verison took over Alltel in my area. My company switched to ATT iphones at that time. I have recently decided that maybe I could use this nice phone with ATT. Much to my disappointment I found through a little research that Alltel and ATT networks are not compatible and the phone and can't be unlocked for use with ATT.
Its seems that my only option now is to find someone with a nice phone that would like to trade hoping that they might be in the same situation in reverse. Have I missed something that can still make this phone work somehow? If not does anyone have a good idea, of how I could make a fair trade?
Thank you and I hope this post is ok for this section.
racing5k said:
I have a HTC Pro Touch phone that was my company phone for about two months before Verison took over Alltel in my area. My company switched to ATT iphones at that time. I have recently decided that maybe I could use this nice phone with ATT. Much to my disappointment I found through a little research that Alltel and ATT networks are not compatible and the phone and can't be unlocked for use with ATT.
Its seems that my only option now is to find someone with a nice phone that would like to trade hoping that they might be in the same situation in reverse. Have I missed something that can still make this phone work somehow? If not does anyone have a good idea, of how I could make a fair trade?
Thank you and I hope this post is ok for this section.
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You could SIM unlock it, but it's not very cheap. There are some nice links in the Raph Wiki that points to SIM unlocking services.
@racing5k
You can try putting it up for sale onbay.com or amazon.com. If you want to avoid registering a selller account on any of those two site (which is free to do), you put a free listing on craigslist.com, always deal local and accept payments in cash and in person. Amazon and ebay will charge you seller/listing fees, there are no fees to list and sell on craigslist. You have a CDMA version of this phone. What you need is the GSM version, which for ATT was branded the HTC Fuze. I have the Fuze but am having a issue with it (battery indicator says it is fully charged at 34%) which I have yer to resolve.
@ZoneBlaze
sim unlock will not work, Alltel uses CDMA technology and ATT uses GSM. racing5k has a CDMA version of the phone, the two technologies are not compatible with each other.
I bought an AT&T Samsung Focus on eBay with no contract and will probably be getting a plan for it in the future, but I am in Canada. Rogers has Samsung Focuses, but I really hate Rogers, so I would rather get a plan with Bell or Telus.
My question is: If I were to put in a SIM card from Bell or Telus and get a smartphone plan, both of which do not have Samsung Focuses, would I be able to fully utilize all of the features that either company would offer with their smartphone plans even though I would not be able to have a ROM for my phone from them?
In particular, I do not know if the ROMs that they have for the Windows Phones that they offer have any special software that enables certain features to be used. For instance, Bell plans are supposed to come with tethering, but there is no built-in way to handle tethering in Windows Phone 7.
My phone came with some preinstalled AT&T apps, but they all required extra subscriptions for them anyway. If those are the only unique things that ROMs from Bell or Telus would provide, I can do without those.
Thanks.
Well, you won't be able to access Bell/Telus exclusive apps (mostly paid services), but nothing else is really missing.
Further advice.
Make sure your Samsung Focus is unlocked. If not, call AT&T and have your phone's IMEI number in hand.
Go to Marketplace > Samsung Zone and install the Network Profile application.
*Mods, please move if there is a better place. I normally hang out on the development forums so I'm not exactly sure where to post*
I have a phone that I bought from Verizon and I have kept the unlimited data. I know all about my phone but next to nothing about my service.
My question is specifically about phablets (for example, this) which is basically a big ass phone, or a tablet with cell service, however you want to word it. I'd use it exclusively with bluetooth instead of holding the thing up to my head, don't worry.
I travel internationally and see them A LOT in other countries (they cannot help me though since I need one to use in the US). I am under the impression that VZ will not activate anything I did not buy from them. I don't know how solid this is but every VZ employee I have asked has confirmed this so far. I know in the past that it used to be as simple as switching out the SIM card but doubt this is still the case.
I'm sure there are some hardware specs that I need to look at that would determine the LTE/3G whatever compatibility, but I don't know the terminology. Can you help me out?
Also, I am hesitant to leave VZ because of the unlimited data and the service coverage. I live in mildly populated CT, USA and would welcome a prepaid plan if it was comparable but don't even know where to begin looking.
Thank you in advance - I really don't have anyone else to ask about this stuff.
You will want to look for international versions of the devices you are looking for. These versions carry multiple antennas that allows them to be used in different countries. As far as I know, these phones use SIM cards, which allows you to purchase an international SIM or a SIM in the country you are in, and it should work when you plug it into your device.
Is there a way to check for the antennas in the specifications instead of relying on the seller to accurately sell me the int'l version? How would you go about buying a SIM card?
Could someone please please pm me and help the imei is bad on verizon but i desperately want to use this phone its on 4.2.2
If the ESN/IMEI is blacklisted or marked as "bad" or stolen by Verizon, there's not much you can do about it. You can put a T-Mobile SIM card in the Droid Ultra and see what happens but more than likely it's not going to work - I'm not 100% certain that the "blacklist" that Verizon maintains is connected with the one that T-Mobile (and other carriers) are now utilizing to track/keep stolen or reportedly lost devices, as well as those where customers just don't pay their bills so the device gets on a list too.
If you put a T-Mobile SIM in the device and it doesn't connect to their network immediately (because T-Mobile SIM cards allow that, you can access the T-Mobile website but nothing else using their 4G HSPA+ or LTE networks) then more than likely you're completely out of luck in most all respects.
All you could do at that point is contact Verizon in some manner and ask if the device was reported lost or stolen or something else. There's a good chance they may not help you at all if you're not a customer, and if you go into a Verizon store directly to check it they may just confiscate the phone completely.
How do you know for sure it's a bad ESN on Verizon? Have you checked it against something like Swappa's online checker (not 100% accurate but at least it's something):
http://swappa.com/esn
Can't hurt to at least give it a once over and see what results you get.
Verizon bad imei no longer works on tmobile tmobile
About a month ago I bought Verizon lg g2 from eBay. It turned out the device had bad imei. It wouldn't connect to tmobile network. I returned the phone back to the seller. Verizon bad imei phones no longer works on tmobile.
Simple right? I have a factory Verizon Samsung galaxy S5 now I have T-Mobile service, can't I just wipe the Verizon software and replace it with the T-mobile software? ..... but I just don't know how and of course T-mobile isn't going to help me they want me to buy a phone, but the super nice lady tech was smitten that another lady was talking "geek" to her so she sent me to the experts. YOU!! Point me in the right direction or something I can figure out the rest. I don't worry about make-up before I leave me house I spend time on making sure my brain can carry me through, so help me work out my greatest asset by handing over some more knowledge. If you have any questions about auto mechanics I could answer those in return.
AZConfusion said:
Simple right? I have a factory Verizon Samsung galaxy S5 now I have T-Mobile service, can't I just wipe the Verizon software and replace it with the T-mobile software? ..... but I just don't know how and of course T-mobile isn't going to help me they want me to buy a phone, but the super nice lady tech was smitten that another lady was talking "geek" to her so she sent me to the experts. YOU!! Point me in the right direction or something I can figure out the rest. I don't worry about make-up before I leave me house I spend time on making sure my brain can carry me through, so help me work out my greatest asset by handing over some more knowledge. If you have any questions about auto mechanics I could answer those in return.
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The Verizon S5's bootloader is locked. If you don't know what that means, it means non-official software/firmware/OS/etc cannot be flashed to the device. Even if the bootloader wasn't locked, the phones (afaik) are physically different (modems/radios/etc) to work on different network technologies.
I know some Verizon phones will work on T-Mobile's (and AT&T's network) simply by popping in the proper SIM. From a quick google search, it seems that the Galaxy S5 is one of them. You just have to change the APN settings or you won't get texts. Follow the directions here (they're for the Note 3, but it's the same process). If there's an update from Verizon, you might have to pop in a Verizon SIM card (and download it off of wi-fi obviously). The SIM doesn't need to be active (use your old one), the phone just has to recognize a Verizon SIM. LTE will work (with the proper APN) because Verizon and T-Mobile both use band 4.
Apart from the T-Mobile account app, there's really nothing about the T-Mobile version that you'd really care about. Different company, different useless bloatware. And as long as there's a T-Mobile SIM, you can still download the account app. If you just don't want anything "Verizon" about it, just google up a guide on what bloatware to disable and how to do it.
FYI, if you're in/around Tucson or Phoenix, supposedly this year we're finally going to get band 12. It's a 700MHz band (like Verizon's band 13), which, being a lower frequency travels further and penetrates buildings better. The Galaxy S5 does not support band 12 - it's not new enough. So if you're boiling your butt off in saguaro country like me, it might behoove you to get a newer phone. The reason we're waiting on band 12 is that there's a UHF TV station in Phoenix that conflicts with that frequency (and the broadcast radius clips the northern Tucson suburbs), but I guess the TV station is going to switch (probably with financial motivation from T-Mo).
If you're not in Tucson or Phoenix (I can't speak for Flagstaff), but in a more rural area, or just where there's poor LTE coverage, it still might behoove you to get a different phone rather than use your Verizon one. The problem is that it doesn't support T-Mobiles better/faster GSM bands, so you would get slower data speeds if not on LTE, even in an area with good HSPA+ or EDGE coverage.
Of course, the other option is simply to buy a T-Mobile phone (like a used S5 off of Swappa) then sell the Verizon one. Or find someone to trade with. An AT&T one would work as well as long as it's carrier unlocked (but not Sprint).
I don't have a car.
Planterz said:
The Verizon S5's bootloader is locked. If you don't know what that means, it means non-official software/firmware/OS/etc cannot be flashed to the device. Even if the bootloader wasn't locked, the phones (afaik) are physically different (modems/radios/etc) to work on different network technologies.
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Just saying, VZW s5 bootloader has been unlocked lately!
Won't make a difference for this user anyways....
Newyork! said:
Just saying, VZW s5 bootloader has been unlocked lately!
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No kidding?
Planterz said:
No kidding?
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There's already 201 pages on the unlocking thread!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/ver...t/rd-unlocking-galaxys-s5-bootloader-t3337909