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Going Global

What do I need to do to make sure I have reliable voice and data for the next month while in Europe? I have a rooted D2G running Fission 2.4.3 and have grown quite fond of using the wireless tether to connect my Xoom and avoid extra data charges with another contract.
What is the best thing to do to get similar service in Europe? Do I still need to call Verizon to unlock my Sim? My company pays my Verizon bill, so I am not so price sensitive, but I use alot of data.
Should I just buy a Sim when over there and use their plan?
What the best way to do this?

I don't have a d2g, but I know gsm phones need to be unlocked with a code and then when you're in anothr country or whatever, you can just get a pre-paid sim from there until you come back.
But its verizon and motorola so I'm sure there's some hurdles to overcome
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

Well - it very much depends on what you mean under 'a lot of data'. If your company is OK paying 4 figure phone bills - then don't bother - just make sure you activate the SIM card before you leave (with Verizon).
If you think money matters afterall, call Verizon, get the unlock code(s) for your phone and just buy a local provider prepaid SIM when you go there (which I am prettty sure you could expense too and company will be more than happy to pay compared to some outrageous roaming bill you can rack up).
A word of advice on unlocking: call Verizon well before you leave and make sure codes they give you are working. To try the code - simply insert any SIM in the phone (borrow firend's att/tmob sim for couple of minutes, or buy used sim for $1 from ebay for example). Inserting the foreign sim will propmt the unlocking menu where you have to enter the code. Once you do it, if phone says "successful" - you are good to go (you will not get service in US with any SIM no matter active or not or what provider - US or not - you put in. Don't be concerned about this - once you get out of the States everything will work fine.

[Q] Prepaid Infuse carrier?

Hey,
I'm recently got an infuse off contract, rooted it, etc, but I haven't been able to make myself transfer my service too it from my other phone. I'm really torn, as it is a great phone but ehhh.
Anyway.
I'm just wondering if there is some way I can use this phone on a pre paid network or something. I looked it up and saw straight talk was perhaps an option, but it seems very confusing.
Thanks.

well you could use simple mobile. (they have ads on this site alot) you could the infuse unlocking guide to unlock your phone and use it on this service. they use t mobiles towers and have 4g (hspa+) in certain areas. their plans are 40 unlimited talk and text, 50 unlimited talk text and 2g data, and 60 unlimited talk text 3g/4g data. you should check them out.hope all goes well my friend.

thank you very much! are there any cheaper options? do you know anything about straight talk?
can i use it on att month to month?

Well simple mobile is one of the cheapest prepaid gsm carriers around. And I know of straight talk. But the only straight talk smart phone is the nokia e71 I believe and that's the only straight talk phone that uses a sim card. So you would have to buy a 200+ phone JUST to get the straight talk sim card out. And yes you can use simple mobile from month to month but after 30 days of no payment they will take your number and deactivate your sim. And another good cheap prepaid option is walmarts family plan. The only thing is to start to see savings you would have to have multiple lines that's why it's good for families. Finally you could check out h20 wireless solutions they have similar rates to simple mobile but they use att towers.... Whew....that was allot of typing....lol

Itaer said:
thank you very much! are there any cheaper options? do you know anything about straight talk?
can i use it on att month to month?
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Based on conversations on IRC with a ST user:
If your SIM was taken from one of th $200 Nokias, you can use in the Infuse. ST is a Tracfone reseller, which uses AT&T's network.
SIMs from all other ST phones are specifically locked to the phone.
ALSO: If you use a SIM from one of the $200 Nokias, you MUST keep the Nokia. If that phone is ever activated with another service, ST will drop service on your SIM.
Edit: Note, I'm an AT&T contract user, all of the above are hearsay from IRC a month or two ago.

i believe you need a $200 nokia smartphone on strait talk but never sell the nokia! the sim is locked to the imei somehow and if the nokia is activated again the old sim is deactivated. also i think strait talk is a reseller of many carriers, they have cdma phones and a few of the nokia smart phones are on t-mobile sim cards from what i understand. you can try it but i think ifg the sim has a "t" on it then you cant use it, only problem is you have know way to know which sim will be in the phone you are buying.
many of those prepay services have one of a number of methods to lock the phone to their network. do as much research as posible before dropping cash on a device that might be useless

I though Att itself has a pay as you go with no contracty plain also tat works for this for for $5 data (10 mb ha) and $.010 a min talk.

Dani897 said:
i believe you need a $200 nokia smartphone on strait talk but never sell the nokia! the sim is locked to the imei somehow and if the nokia is activated again the old sim is deactivated. also i think strait talk is a reseller of many carriers, they have cdma phones and a few of the nokia smart phones are on t-mobile sim cards from what i understand. you can try it but i think ifg the sim has a "t" on it then you cant use it, only problem is you have know way to know which sim will be in the phone you are buying.
many of those prepay services have one of a number of methods to lock the phone to their network. do as much research as posible before dropping cash on a device that might be useless
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So theoretically, you could buy the 200 phone, and buy the cheap ass phone......in separate transactions, from Wal-mart and then use the expensive sim card, but put the cheap sim card in the expensive phone pkg and return the phone......only if you are evil!

I understand you could use the GoPhone plans, but you will need a new sim card, and also have to have a data plan to go with it, not sure how much the Simple Mobile plans are they talk about, but your looking at around 55-60$ for GoPhone plans with minimum data. 50$ unlimited talk and text and 5$for 10mb. Tops is 25$for 500mb, thats still not a lot of data though. I think 10mb for a phone is a joke, in my opinion. Maybe check out the Simple Mobile, you will have to unlock your phone for that though. Instructions for that are XDA.

emeralds5668 said:
So theoretically, you could buy the 200 phone, and buy the cheap ass phone......in separate transactions, from Wal-mart and then use the expensive sim card, but put the cheap sim card in the expensive phone pkg and return the phone......only if you are evil!
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No. If the expensive phone is EVER activated with another SIM, the expensive SIM you're using will get deactivated according to everything I've heard.

Entropy512 said:
No. If the expensive phone is EVER activated with another SIM, the expensive SIM you're using will get deactivated according to everything I've heard.
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Yeah but if the phone is returned, after it has been opened, then its not returned to the shelf. I think it would be considered refurb. I dont know, but they would probably reassign the imei to another sim. Dont know. I think I will just keep my edge speed in the hope that when att buys t-mobile that I will finally gtr hspda.

[Q] AT&T One X micro sim activation

Coming from an Inspire 4G, I have a regular size sim chip. I'm handy with an Xacto and sanding stick, so on friday when my One X comes, should I cut my sim to fit, or just take it into the store and get a micro sim? Or is there a difference between an LTE micro sim and a '4G' regular sim? Also, what exactly does AT&T charge an activation fee for?

rushwal said:
Coming from an Inspire 4G, I have a regular size sim chip. I'm handy with an Xacto and sanding stick, so on friday when my One X comes, should I cut my sim to fit, or just take it into the store and get a micro sim? Or is there a difference between an LTE micro sim and a '4G' regular sim? Also, what exactly does AT&T charge an activation fee for?
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There is a difference between a 4G sim and an LTE sim. If you want LTE, you need a new card. If you don't care, go ahead and trim yours to fit, if you think you can do it right. There is technically no need to make any changes to your plan in order to switch to a new phone, or even make the carrier aware that you're doing it on a GSM network.
Whether that violates AT&T policy, and what the consequences of that are, is a separate issue. That you may want to look into.

It should come with a new sim card. The activation fee is you paying for the privilege of AT&T allowing you to continue using their service with new equipment for the next 2 years. Call customer care when it hits your bill. You should be able to get it removed.

Your OneX will come with a new AT&T microSIM in the box (AT&T always does that). You simply call in and activate that SIM instead of messing with your old SIM. The reason you need to call in is to make sure they updated your data plan to LTE plan. Without this step, you won't get any data connection on LTE.
$36 fee is just that, a fee. It covers above mentioned task if you do call. Otherwise, it is just another way for AT&T to make a few buck$ off you.

DannySmurf said:
There is a difference between a 4G sim and an LTE sim. If you want LTE, you need a new card. If you don't care, go ahead and trim yours to fit, if you think you can do it right.
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I've heard that as long as your current at&t sim card has a "25" as the ninth and tenth digits printed on it, it's LTE capable. So, cutting it down and popping it in the One X should be fine if it has these digits. But yeah, you'll probably still need to call them so they can add your IMEI number to your account.
Although, you could always just go to your local store and get a new sim for free once you get your phone if you're like me and aren't ordering it through at&t!

I want to call and ask them to remove my activation fee, do I have to make some sob story about not being able to afford it or something? Or can I just ask them to take it off, and how should I approach that?

If you were out of contract, the TOS allows you to cancel within 30 days without an ETF. Be sure to mention that to them and then say you would consider such a thing if this activation fee which seems unnecessary is not waived.
sassafras

hokiesteve said:
I've heard that as long as your current at&t sim card has a "25" as the ninth and tenth digits printed on it, it's LTE capable. So, cutting it down and popping it in the One X should be fine if it has these digits. But yeah, you'll probably still need to call them so they can add your IMEI number to your account.
Although, you could always just go to your local store and get a new sim for free once you get your phone if you're like me and aren't ordering it through at&t!
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Yeah... my shipped email says it is coming with a new sim card, so at the least, I'll have a template for cutting it down. I'm 100+ miles from the nearest LTE market, so I might try that first.
What does AT&T need my IMEI number for? Just curious if that's just one piece of information that they want, but don't really need... but gives them one more hook into me.

[Q] Activate on postpaid Verizon?

Been thinking about picking up one if these as a backup. The problem is that these phones can only be activated on postpaid verizon after 6 months of being active on prepaid. Sort of a deal dealer. Can this limitation be passed? Is there anyone who knows of a way to bypass this and just activate straight on my share everything plan?

Anyone?

I would like more information on this too.
Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk

since my GSIII decided to commit suicide and I didn't want to spend too much money to upgrade devices when all the new flagships are about to be released, I got myself a moto g.
Good news is that you can activate it directly onto a postpaid plan. I didn't give it a prepaid number to begin with, so I don't know if that would affect anything, but if your phone has no number, just activate it through *228. It failed the first time when programming, but the second time around it worked.

rawrgh said:
since my GSIII decided to commit suicide and I didn't want to spend too much money to upgrade devices when all the new flagships are about to be released, I got myself a moto g.
Good news is that you can activate it directly onto a postpaid plan. I didn't give it a prepaid number to begin with, so I don't know if that would affect anything, but if your phone has no number, just activate it through *228. It failed the first time when programming, but the second time around it worked.
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thank you for the response about this... can anyone else confirm this?
i called a verizon store earlier and was, of course, told that no you could not and it had to be on the 6 months, etc...
so if i pickup a moto g (verizon capable) from best buy, for $100, and just buy the phone and leave (they will let me?) i can then just *228 from the phone itself and port it onto my account somehow?
currently using an iphone 4 on verizon.

cyburke said:
thank you for the response about this... can anyone else confirm this?
i called a verizon store earlier and was, of course, told that no you could not and it had to be on the 6 months, etc...
so if i pickup a moto g (verizon capable) from best buy, for $100, and just buy the phone and leave (they will let me?) i can then just *228 from the phone itself and port it onto my account somehow?
currently using an iphone 4 on verizon.
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My process with getting the phone was walking into target and picking one up for $100, *228 with phone number you want to transfer and the account password (had to search for that) and it activated on the second try.
I most definitely went from numberless to postpaid plan.
Maybe I got lucky because the guy who got the phone for me wasn't the usual guy who takes care of phones. YMMV

AshtonTS said:
Been thinking about picking up one if these as a backup. The problem is that these phones can only be activated on postpaid verizon after 6 months of being active on prepaid. Sort of a deal dealer. Can this limitation be passed? Is there anyone who knows of a way to bypass this and just activate straight on my share everything plan?
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Click to collapse
I can confirm.
I just bought a Moto G from Best Buy. I turn on the phone, killed the activation. Because I have a business account, I logged into the web, put in the ESN number. Once I did this *228 and it activated with my number and 3g.
Groovy!

thats two confirms. One more and i sell my soul and gs3 for a G!

What is the account password. You mean to log into the online account?

Best Buy Verizon Moto G Prepaid - Activated Successfully on Contract
Another data point for a successful activation on a contract plan. Picked up the phone from Best Buy, bypassed the activation screen, dialed *228, and success! Both voice and data are functioning. Hopefully it's a permanent replacement.

For anyone who did this, did you have an old plan without data, and if so, did it force you to change your plan?

I want the moderator to ban me.

sprockkets said:
For anyone who did this, did you have an old plan without data, and if so, did it force you to change your plan?
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I currently have an unlimited data plan and didn't have to make any changes to use the Moto G.

raiderj said:
I currently have an unlimited data plan and didn't have to make any changes to use the Moto G.
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Well the person I'm trying to get this for doesn't have any data plan and uses an old plan from years ago and doesn't want to change. Sometimes the stupid carriers detect you went from a feature phone to a smartphone and tell you you have to upgrade your data plan or else.
Hope it works.

Make sure the network fine.

sprockkets said:
Well the person I'm trying to get this for doesn't have any data plan and uses an old plan from years ago and doesn't want to change. Sometimes the stupid carriers detect you went from a feature phone to a smartphone and tell you you have to upgrade your data plan or else.
Hope it works.
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That I'm not sure about. Verizon may very well be able to tell if a newly activated phone is a "smart" phone and requires a data plan. There might be better/cheaper options for phones without data plans.

I just bought one for my Dad, His S3 crapped out and went to try and activate this moto g on my account which is not prepaid and it wouldnt do it not even ask for the #, so I called *22898 for prepaid activation and it says its LOCKED and to return it to the store. Wal-Mart must had not scanned it properly. So I`ll go back get that fixed and hope it can activate cause he can upgrade in 4 months but Verizon wont Budge so no point and buying a used phone for a lot of money for just 4 months.

Update: Got it exchanged, Dialed *228 activated the first time

hyelton said:
Update: Got it exchanged, Dialed *228 activated the first time
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Glad to hear it worked out for you. I was a little worried when I bought my phone. The clerk at Walmart had to scan it quite a few times. I was worried it wasn't going to get unlocked, like yours.
Sent from my XT1028 using Tapatalk

Heres a small video of it being activated:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4kCBMV5tOw

Moving from TMobile to Consumer Cellular - unlocking

I just thought I would relate my newbie story on this for any other newbies.
My son bought a TMobile 4G Slide from Ebay a few months ago for $50 and used it on TMobile Prepay no problem, then wanted to move it to Consumer Cellular (he's a low volume user so their plans would be a much better deal for him)
So he asked me to move the phone. I did make him root it for the experience but since the financial stuff required credit cards and he's only 16 I took care of the accounting stuff.
So first thing was ordering the SIM card from CC. That came the next week and I plugged it into his phone. No dice, the phone wanted a network unlock code. I expected that but just wanted to check.
So I called TMobile for the unlock code. Got transferred to pre pay tech support. Ok no problem. Pre Pay TMobile tech support says 'we won't unlock it because there's an amount owing, call our contracts dept."
After wasting an hour or so getting transferred around it finally dawned on me the issue - TMobile has separate tech support departments for Prepay and Postpay accounts. Because this phone had been originally bought on a Postpay account, the Prepay support people couldn't lookup **** on the IMEI number. So I call back in and this time ask for a representative and asked to get transferred to postpay customer service.
I finally get a knowledgeable rep. from Postpay who can look up the IMEI number. He tells me "the IMEI on this one is perfectly clean, there's no outstanding insurance claims or unpaid bills" So much for the dingbats in the other support group.
But, there's a problem. The rep explains that the only way to request a network unlock code on a TMobile phone is to call in, identify yourself as the contract holder (with the phone number of the account, and the PIN) for the matching account that was last used on the phone. If the phone was sold as prepay then you have to call in as the last prepay telephone number to come up on the phone, if the phone was originally sold as post pay you have to call in as a post pay account holder for the account the phone's IMEI was last used on. He said go back to the guy you bought the phone from and ask them to network unlock it.
So I'm stuck. So I dig around in my junk box and come up with an older TMobile 3G slide. This is the predecessor to the 4G slide, it was made by HTC and was used on my wife's TMobile post pay account (which is still active) until she upgraded. So I call into TMobile with that phone, give them the IMEI and a few days later I get an email from TMobile with a network unlock code for the 3G.
I stick in the Consumer Cellular SIM to the 3G and it comes up. But, it cannot get on the CC data network. Voice and text work fine, data does not. I call CC's tech support and they try a bunch of different things, nothing works. They say "well sorry you will just have to upgrade your phone"
So now I'm back to the 4G Slide. So I start searching the Internet can come up with http://unlockcode247.com/ They want $4 to unlock the phone, I figure what the hell. I send them the IMEI and the money and a few hours later I get an unlock code.
The code works, the phone gets on the CC network, and now both voice and data are working just fine.

As I'm in the UK I didn't even bother with Tmobile when I bought my 4G Slide a couple of years ago.. Bought a code on Ebay from somebody with high rating.. Quick and easy.

I did neither, since I came across this post:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1848234
Why pay for a code or hassle with T-Mo when the code is already sitting on the phone?