Q&A: Can you really buy an unlocked cell phone and use it on any carier?

by sbfisher

Im not sure exactly how this works, so if some one could clarify a small better id apreciate it. Ive just read seats on the internet that you can use unlocked cell phones one any carier but i questioned my verizon guy about it as i was going to buy one and try it out but he said you can do it.

Answer by santobugito
the verizon guy is right, in a way. You can only unlock a phone that uses a sim card, for use with any sim card.
Since Verizon doesn’t use these, it can’t be done for them. at&t phones you can unlock-which means take the network restrictions off-and use a TMobile sim card, or even use it overseas. Or vice versa.

Answer by Zakir P
yup only cards with sim cards can be unlocked. att and tmobile

Answer by Johnny
Verizon does in fact use SIM cards, but only on a few phones. The Storm and the 8830 both can be unlocked and used on AT&T and T-Mobile.

When a Cell phone is bought from a service provider, it is locked in such a way that only that provider will be accepted and utilized by the phone. When it is “unlocked”, any provider that uses that network can now use that phone. There is a difference though because some carriers use GSM and some use CDMA.

Verizon, Sprint, Nextel, Cricket and Alltel all run by CDMA networks, so if the “unlocked” phone was originally on one of those service providers, it will generally only work with them. There are phone exceptions to this though.

Cingular, AT&T, T-Mobile, Rogers Wireless and many other Global GSM Provider worldwide run on a GSM network, so same as above.

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!

hi! i just bought a smartphone on ebay, its used but not unlocked, im going to europe in a month so will a ATT give me a free unlock code for a used cell phone?
thanks!

Answer by Murzy
if it’s not stolen they should be able to help you

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