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So i want to get a sprint hero, but want to know if it could be flashed to metro pcs first.
Since it's CDMA I don't think you can change carriers. Your best bet is to phone sprint and ask, because there's no SIM card I assume any switch-over would have to be initiated at Sprints end.
AdrianK said:
Since it's CDMA I don't think you can change carriers. Your best bet is to phone sprint and ask, because there's no SIM card I assume any switch-over would have to be initiated at Sprints end.
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Both of them are CDMA, they offer a service that flashes sprint or verizon phones to work on their cdma network.\
I plan a keeping my G1 but dont want to get into a contract again.
With AT&T you can simply throw a sim card in and away you go with any phone you want. What do you do on AT&T namely if you have an iPhone and TBolt?
You wont be able to do it without going through Verizon to have your TB Sim card reset everytime you want to use your TB after using your iPhone.
Normally you just have to do a simple ESN swap (can do online). Unfortunately with the Thunderbolt and it's LTE SIM, things might be more complicated. I'd check with a Verizon rep to see what would be involved.
Sadly its a complete pain in the butt. One of the guys I work with had to deactivate it and reactivate it a couple of days later. The guy in the store couldn't figure out how to do it, and it took him about 3 hours on the phone with various techs to finally get it working. They ended up having to swap out the SIM card in the store.
Not sure if its the process that is tough, or if they just don't know what they are doing. Either way, I wouldn't recommend it if you can avoid it. If you really need to do it, it is possible, but its not as simple as just swapping out a SIM card like on AT&T.
Once there are more phones utilizing LTE wouldn't you just be able to swap out your sim card and put it in any LTE phone?
dirtyfingers said:
Once there are more phones utilizing LTE wouldn't you just be able to swap out your sim card and put it in any LTE phone?
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Yes, this is correct. I can go buy the Droid Charge, and put in the SIM from my Thunderbolt, and I'll be good to go.
Thats pretty sweet, I wish I had the cash to drop on some more LTE phones when they come out.
WilliamStern said:
Yes, this is correct. I can go buy the Droid Charge, and put in the SIM from my Thunderbolt, and I'll be good to go.
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Are you sure about that? I thought we were still using CDMA for calls and there is no voice over 4G/LTE on VZW just yet.
WilliamStern said:
Yes, this is correct. I can go buy the Droid Charge, and put in the SIM from my Thunderbolt, and I'll be good to go.
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Pretty sure this is wrong.
When setting up my phone the rep had to set up the sim card and phone separately.
Razorz is right, we still utilize cdma for voice, so it may be possible to get data on a new phone but no voice?
A rep told me you could, never tried I don't have another Verizon phone to swap it out with. Also ATT charges activation when you swap sims "if the sim is in a different phone for a lengthy time". Also ATT will add a data plan to your account if the phone you put it in requires one.
the id number for the sim card and the ESN for the phone both must be in the verizon system associated with your phone number or the device will not work.
stuckhere4ever said:
Sadly its a complete pain in the butt. One of the guys I work with had to deactivate it and reactivate it a couple of days later. The guy in the store couldn't figure out how to do it, and it took him about 3 hours on the phone with various techs to finally get it working. They ended up having to swap out the SIM card in the store.
Not sure if its the process that is tough, or if they just don't know what they are doing. Either way, I wouldn't recommend it if you can avoid it. If you really need to do it, it is possible, but its not as simple as just swapping out a SIM card like on AT&T.
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they didn't know what they were doing.
When I had data problems with my TB, I switched to my INC via the activate phone link on the "my account" web page. An hour later when I tried to return to the TB, I got a prompt for the phone's IMEI, then prompted for the SIM card's number.. It error-ed. After calling CS, the rep couldn't help, got TS on the line, they manually entered the SIM number to make it work...
So it appears switching away from the TB deactivated the SIM, to switch back, VZW's TS had to re-add or re-activate the SIM.
And as thetwiztidfreak said, they did need BOTH the IMEI and SIM numbers to re-activate the TB.
thetwiztidfreak said:
the id number for the sim card and the ESN for the phone both must be in the verizon system associated with your phone number or the device will not work.
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Correct but when you put the registered SIM in another LTE device it registers that handsets IMEI with your account. You can infact do a SIM swap with LTE, since your phone number is tied to the SIM putting the sim in another device effectively activates the phone on your account.
I should know, it's my job ;-)
It works the same way as GSM, but going from an LTE phone to a CDMA phone is a bit different, the SIM gets decactivated and becomes useless and if you want to switch back you need to go the a Verizon store for them to sell you out a new SIM for $0(some times old SIMs can be reactivated however there may b e issues with this). It's a PITA so I don't reccomend switching back and forth between CDMA and LTE devices unless you absolutely HAVE to.
chaoscentral said:
Correct but when you put the registered SIM in another LTE device it registers that handsets IMEI with your account. You can infact do a SIM swap with LTE, since your phone number is tied to the SIM putting the sim in another device effectively activates the phone on your account.
I should know, it's my job ;-)
It works the same way as GSM, but going from an LTE phone to a CDMA phone is a bit different, the SIM gets decactivated and becomes useless and if you want to switch back you need to go the a Verizon store for them to sell you out a new SIM for $0(some times old SIMs can be reactivated however there may b e issues with this). It's a PITA so I don't reccomend switching back and forth between CDMA and LTE devices unless you absolutely HAVE to.
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I can confirm that it is a royal pain in the ass to go to the vzw store to get a new sim...
I just got a replacement for my tbolt. I had 5 days to return the "defective" one. I bounced the SIM card back and forth between the two phones a dozen times trying to see which one got better 3G/4G reception. The rep told me to decide which one works better and send the other phone back. It didn't matter.
So where i live we have another option for gsm networks called air fire mobile... I called at&t to get my unlock code after giving me my code they asked what my intentions were, i told them to switch networks. The rep then told me my inspire would not work on this other gsm network called airfire. I dont know if air fire is a national thing or what but in case not here is there web site. http://www.airfiremobile.com/
Well i went to airfire mobile and they said my phone would have to be unlocked so i had them put there sim card into my phone and nothing popped up for unrecognized sim card..... My g/f has a htc aria and she got the option to unlock sim she put the unlock code in she had received and it worked but her phone could not recognize air fire's network only there roaming service with is covered by at&t... is there something with HTC phones that will not allow us to use this network, or are there any steps we need to do once the new sim cards are in the phones like settings and apns numbers or anything? Please help looking to escape my raping by at&t each month lol
You should have no issues with ATT phones working on AirFire. Looks like they use the same bands as ATT. And maybe she was showing as roaming because she was actually roaming. There is only local coverage in wisconsin. This page shows everything you need to know except nowhere on the site does it say they offer 3G. I am guessing it is edge only.
http://www.airfiremobile.com/Support
thank you for you help, when i asked the lady if they offer 3g her response was we offer 2.5g lol im guessing that would be edge?? Also when i go Menu>settings>wireless and networks>mobile networks>Network operators: the only thing that comes up is at&t. This is with my at&t sim card in, but shouldnt it show airfire also? or does my phone need to be unlocked before it will show airfire?? so confusing lol
Is your phone sim unlocked? You said you got the code from ATT but never said if you were able to enter it sucessfully. Is your phone rooted? If yes then during the rooting process it will become sim unlocked. So if you phone happens to be sim unlocked then select "network operators" and do a search for your new network. And YES you have to have an AirMobile sim or all you will see is ATT with an ATT sim card.
Just in case you don't understand, you unlock the phone to use any simcard. You are not unlocking the sim card to use any carrier.
As far as data it is an ATT phone. It does not have the APN for AirFire Mobile. You will have to enter that yourself as a new APN.
yes my phone is rooted, i never knew that by rooting it unlocks the phone, maybe that would explain why when i put the airfire sim in the box never came up asking for the unlock code?
But even still when the g/f had the airfire sim in her aria and she unlocked her phone it showed airfire network but it was roaming.. and didn't show there home network, the rep at the store said it could be something within the hardware from htc??? and at&t told me my inspire wouldn't work on airfire because my phone was 4g phone.. which i dont see why a 4g phone cant come down to Edge network if thats what airfire is
Any ATT phone will be able to make calls and connect to data on AirFire's 2.5G system if thats what they call it.
Let's just say that the rep at the store should be selling shoes.
Agoattamer said:
Any ATT phone will be able to make calls and connect to data on AirFire's 2.5G system if thats what they call it.
Let's just say that the rep at the store should be selling shoes.
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Your right the guy is stupid. First the inspire can't connect to att 4g network that is not even 4g. As long as they are GSM based you are at least gonna get edge. I don't even want him selling me shoes lol
With GSM it's easy - you take out your SIM card, and you are off that SIM's network.
Presumably the Nexus 5 will work for voice and 3G without the SIM card. Is there some way to turn off CDMA (yes, I know that if there is no SIM I can just turn off all cellular data. But that's not my question.)
If you mean temporarily, you can always do the old standby of airplane mode. Enable airplane mode, then enable whatever wireless services you want (Wifi, Bluetooth). The airplane mode will keep the cellular modem completely off.
ronwi2 said:
With GSM it's easy - you take out your SIM card, and you are off that SIM's network.
Presumably the Nexus 5 will work for voice and 3G without the SIM card. Is there some way to turn off CDMA (yes, I know that if there is no SIM I can just turn off all cellular data. But that's not my question.)
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There should be options under networks to select cdma or gsm. Will find out tomorrow
lafester said:
There should be options under networks to select cdma or gsm. Will find out tomorrow
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Now that the phone has been out in the wild for a while does anyone know the answer to this question?
The N5 does not allow voice or 3g without a sim for some reason. Perhaps someone will figure out a way to bypass this check at some point.
You can also pick and choose between gsm only, cdma only, lte only etc no problem.
lafester said:
The N5 does not allow voice or 3g without a sim for some reason. Perhaps someone will figure out a way to bypass this check at some point.
You can also pick and choose between gsm only, cdma only, lte only etc no problem.
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Click to collapse
So if you take out the SIM, and you are on Sprint, you can't make phone calls or use 3G data?
I know the Sprint LTE Iphones will work if the SIM is removed, just without LTE.
Maybe that's just a way of keeping things clear to the user - your phone has the identity of whatever SIM you have in at any given time.
lafester said:
The N5 does not allow voice or 3g without a sim for some reason. Perhaps someone will figure out a way to bypass this check at some point.
You can also pick and choose between gsm only, cdma only, lte only etc no problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's kinda crappy. What if you want to use another CDMA only provider?
pclov3r said:
That's kinda crappy. What if you want to use another CDMA only provider?
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Click to collapse
I don't think it is compatible with any other CDMA only provider - certainly not with Verizon. Who else is there? Metro is going GSM/LTE.
Or perhaps the SIM is necessary to pick the CDMA provider - most CDMA phones are carreir specific, and they just default to the carrier associated with the phone. In other words, if you turn on an unactivated Sprint or Verizon phone, it automatically goes to the correct carrier. If the Nexus 5 has access to more than one CDMA carrier, perhaps the SIM is the method of selecting the carrier.
I
ronwi2 said:
I don't think it is compatible with any other CDMA only provider - certainly not with Verizon. Who else is there? Metro is going GSM/LTE.
Or perhaps the SIM is necessary to pick the CDMA provider - most CDMA phones are carreir specific, and they just default to the carrier associated with the phone. In other words, if you turn on an unactivated Sprint or Verizon phone, it automatically goes to the correct carrier. If the Nexus 5 has access to more than one CDMA carrier, perhaps the SIM is the method of selecting the carrier.
I
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PagePlus is one who runs on Verizon and allows any phone. No LTE tho with them.
Also, The carrier on most CDMA phone is determined by the PRL file. This tells the phone which towers to communicate with and it can be changed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_Roaming_List
pclov3r said:
PagePlus is one who runs on Verizon and allows any phone. No LTE tho with them.
Also, The carrier on most CDMA phone is determined by the PRL file. This tells the phone which towers to communicate with and it can be changed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_Roaming_List
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Presumably then the PRL is preloaded on the Nexus 5 - hence it knows to look for Sprint.
I believe Page Plus as a Verizon MVNO and will only activate Verizon phones, or their own (Page Plus) phones.
ronwi2 said:
I believe Page Plus as a Verizon MVNO and will only activate Verizon phones, or their own (Page Plus) phones.
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Click to collapse
They will activate any CDM phone for a except few exceptions such as if the phone is ESN banned on Verizon, PrePaid Verizon phones, Verizon iphones and Verizon blackberry devices. It's a well known unofficial policy.
To add backing of this you can see my signature
Due to hearing that problem I might look at a S4 or something. I generally like the build quality of Samsung much better than LG.
ronwi2 said:
So if you take out the SIM, and you are on Sprint, you can't make phone calls or use 3G data?
I know the Sprint LTE Iphones will work if the SIM is removed, just without LTE.
Maybe that's just a way of keeping things clear to the user - your phone has the identity of whatever SIM you have in at any given time.
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Just checked again... you CAN make calls however data is unavailable.
lafester said:
Just checked again... you CAN make calls however data is unavailable.
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Interesting, but doesn't really make sense that 3G data is unavailable. If you put a GSM LTE SIM in and select CDMA only, will it make calls on Sprint? (Don't mean to tell you what to do, but I think it would be an interesting thing to find out if you were so inclined.)
pclov3r said:
They will activate any CDM phone for a except few exceptions such as if the phone is ESN banned on Verizon, PrePaid Verizon phones, Verizon iphones and Verizon blackberry devices. It's a well known unofficial policy.
To add backing of this you can see my signature
Due to hearing that problem I might look at a S4 or something. I generally like the build quality of Samsung much better than LG.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, that might be an interesting back door into Verizon. I wonder if there is some way that the Nexus 5 can be flashed or otherwise work on Page Plus. I get there would be no LTE, however.
ronwi2 said:
Well, that might be an interesting back door into Verizon. I wonder if there is some way that the Nexus 5 can be flashed or otherwise work on Page Plus. I get there would be no LTE, however.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope so but i'm thinking it's going to require some software modification.
pclov3r said:
I hope so but i'm hearing it's going to require some software modification it appears.
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I guess I really don't understand how CDMA works. With GSM, if the phone is unlocked, it works on any network. CDMA always seems to involve flashing. Although I believe there is so me sort of lock on CDMA phones as well (after all, MSL = Master Subsidy Lock.) I wonder if the CDMA side of the phone is locked to Sprint (we know from other posts there is an MSL code for these phones.)
ronwi2 said:
I guess I really don't understand how CDMA works. With GSM, if the phone is unlocked, it works on any network. CDMA always seems to involve flashing. Although I believe there is so me sort of lock on CDMA phones as well (after all, MSL = Master Subsidy Lock.) I wonder if the CDMA side of the phone is locked to Sprint (we know from other posts there is an MSL code for these phones.)
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Sure, And you can obtain and change that.
pclov3r said:
Sure, And you can obtain and change that.
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Is there a way to check the MSL settings without a Sprint SIM?
The #.#.3282#.#. dialer menu doesn't work with a T-Mobile sim...
satadru said:
Is there a way to check the MSL settings without a Sprint SIM?
The #.#.3282#.#. dialer menu doesn't work with a T-Mobile sim...
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Click to collapse
In my experience, none of the *#*#xxxxx#*#* codes work without the SIM inserted. You might even need to be activated on Sprint at the time.
Just to clarify, CDMA in this thread includes WCDMA(3g) too?
So the phone will either go GSM or LTE only, which 3g or HSDPA/HSPA are not available by options?
So I am looking to buy a new phone. I am looking on ebay and there are TONS of bad imei phones for at&t! I want to buy one since they are cheaper. Only issue is that I want to be sure that they will work on straight talk, since that is my current carrier. I have read lots of people's pinions about if they will work or not because of blacklists, and I don't know if there is any one steady answer. I am hoping to get someone with some real knowledge to shed some light on this because I am stumped on if I should take the risk and buy one.
I did call straight talk today and ask if I can bring a phone with a bad IMEI number over and the response I got was strange... They said that all I have to do is buy a BYOP package and give them my sim card number and it will work. I said I know that it will work because i am on a BYOP already, but I wanted to know if my sim would get kicked off for using a blacklisted phone on the at&t network even though it was through straight talk. She said, that they only need the digits from the straight talk sim and it would work. So I tried one more time and explained everything fully... I again received the same response that they needed the sim card numbers only. So I said, does that mean that the IMEI doesn't matter for your service at all and I can have a blacklisted phone on it? and again the response was, (besically) yes, you just need a straight talk sim.
So all in all I understand that to mean that AT&T has nothing to do with straight talk when it comes to blacklisting phones! That's a wonderful thing since there are so many blacklist phones out there right now, but I was hoping someone else could drop a little knowledge on me if they knew something about it, or if they knew that straight talk was lying, so I don't waste my time/money on this phone.
I haven't looked into this since last year, but the FCC was advising on a shared blacklist to be implemented in the future back then.
Also beware that the phone might be stolen, which could lead to more problems in the future.
I've never used Straight Talk, but if they use AT&T towers maybe call AT&T. Honestly, it might be hard to get a real answer from them because most of the reps (true for all companies) don't have a clue how their own blacklists even work - heck, some don't even seem to know they *exist*.
They might not be "lying", it just might not be part of their training is information base.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk
w4rped said:
So I am looking to buy a new phone. I am looking on ebay and there are TONS of bad imei phones for at&t! I want to buy one since they are cheaper. Only issue is that I want to be sure that they will work on straight talk, since that is my current carrier. I have read lots of people's pinions about if they will work or not because of blacklists, and I don't know if there is any one steady answer. I am hoping to get someone with some real knowledge to shed some light on this because I am stumped on if I should take the risk and buy one.
I did call straight talk today and ask if I can bring a phone with a bad IMEI number over and the response I got was strange... They said that all I have to do is buy a BYOP package and give them my sim card number and it will work. I said I know that it will work because i am on a BYOP already, but I wanted to know if my sim would get kicked off for using a blacklisted phone on the at&t network even though it was through straight talk. She said, that they only need the digits from the straight talk sim and it would work. So I tried one more time and explained everything fully... I again received the same response that they needed the sim card numbers only. So I said, does that mean that the IMEI doesn't matter for your service at all and I can have a blacklisted phone on it? and again the response was, (besically) yes, you just need a straight talk sim.
So all in all I understand that to mean that AT&T has nothing to do with straight talk when it comes to blacklisting phones! That's a wonderful thing since there are so many blacklist phones out there right now, but I was hoping someone else could drop a little knowledge on me if they knew something about it, or if they knew that straight talk was lying, so I don't waste my time/money on this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
StraightTalk SIM cards can either use AT&T or T-mobile (Tracfone {parent company for StraghtTalk} leases several carrier's networks). If you buy and AT&T phone with a bad ESN and put a StraghtTalk AT&T SIM into it, the likelihood of it working is low. The reason for this is the you would still be using AT&T's network, and the ESN has a high chance of being picked up by AT&T's black-list.
If I were you, I'd get a factory unlocked phone, or a newer Verizon 4G LTE phone that has a bad (or clean) ESN. The reason I say the later is that most Verizon 4G LTE phones are also world phones and work with GSM. Now, you'll have to remove the radio band block, but that's very easy, and I know XDA has several tutorials for this. I removed the block on my RAZR M and it works just fine with an AT&T SIM inserted.
Hikikomori-Otaku said:
StraightTalk SIM cards can either use AT&T or T-mobile (Tracfone {parent company for StraghtTalk} leases several carrier's networks). If you buy and AT&T phone with a bad ESN and put a StraghtTalk AT&T SIM into it, the likelihood of it working is low. The reason for this is the you would still be using AT&T's network, and the ESN has a high chance of being picked up by AT&T's black-list.
If I were you, I'd get a factory unlocked phone, or a newer Verizon 4G LTE phone that has a bad (or clean) ESN. The reason I say the later is that most Verizon 4G LTE phones are also world phones and work with GSM. Now, you'll have to remove the radio band block, but that's very easy, and I know XDA has several tutorials for this. I removed the block on my RAZR M and it works just fine with an AT&T SIM inserted.
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Click to collapse
I think the reason i might believe them is because they dont even know my imei number for the phone i have right now! And if my number is not tied to my imei number then it would be impossible for them to find it out. Or at least i would think it is. Every other service that is tied to an esn or imei number, you have to tell them the number and let them register it. With straight talk you register the sim and can use that sim in any unlocked phone.
I am currently running a note 2 from verizon on straight talk. It is a world phone but i cant seem to get 4g on it. Is this because i have to unlock the bands? If so, how do i do that? I thought it was just because of the apn i was using. I tried a bunch but only got one to work on h+/h/3g (it flickers).
w4rped said:
I think the reason i might believe them is because they dont even know my imei number for the phone i have right now! And if my number is not tied to my imei number then it would be impossible for them to find it out. Or at least i would think it is. Every other service that is tied to an esn or imei number, you have to tell them the number and let them register it. With straight talk you register the sim and can use that sim in any unlocked phone.
I am currently running a note 2 from verizon on straight talk. It is a world phone but i cant seem to get 4g on it. Is this because i have to unlock the bands? If so, how do i do that? I thought it was just because of the apn i was using. I tried a bunch but only got one to work on h+/h/3g (it flickers).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're half-right. You don't have to give StrraightTalk you ESN (MEID/IMEI). The problem comes when you connect to the network. When you connect, your device will be identified by it's ICCID (SIM #) and it's ESN (so it knows what type of device it is and what service it needs). Because it would be an old AT&T phone, reconnecting to AT&T, there's a high chance it will be matched on the black-list.
As for your Note II, if it's already working, the radio it has may not support the higher GSM 4G/LTE bands. You may be able to unlock them, but I wouldn't know how with a Samsung device. The APN may help, but I'd first check the radio.
Ok I have a question so I have a T-Mobile contract and iPhone 7 Plus for a little over a. Year now but I haven’t paid it off in full and my bill got out of hand so I can’t afford to pay the balance so is there anyway I can use this for any prepaid plans of any company