vB Easy Archive - Any reason why you want to unlock the phone?

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Any reason why you want to unlock the phone?
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Posted by: vanilasky

Hello all,
I'm a newbie, I notice alot of post regarding phone unlocking... I just wondering what does 'phone unlocking' means? Why u want to unlock it?

Thanks for ur time to reply ...

Posted by: PhillyemtT3

A locked phone is locked to one carrier, IE: ATTWS, VZW, Fido, Rogers etc, etc. If you have an unlocked phone, you can take the phone to ANY Carrier that supports GSM. Basically if you bought a phone from ATTWS, and now you don't want ATTWS but you want VZW now, and you wish to keep the phone, you must get the phone unlocked to allow it to be used with a VZW plan.

Simply put:

Locked phone works on the carrier it was purchased for

Unlocked phone works on any carrier that supports the phone

Posted by: ellswrth

So let's say you have an AT&T GSM phone and you want to use your phone on the Cingular network. Don't you need to also have a Cingular account?

I keep reading that you can unlock your phone and use it on other networks that support that phone, but I guess I haven't seen the practical advantage in doing so.

Who here has unlocked their phone and jumped onto other providers? What else can you do?

Posted by: 8265boi

Quote:

Originally posted by PhillyemtT3
A locked phone is locked to one carrier, IE: ATTWS, VZW, Fido, Rogers etc, etc. If you have an unlocked phone, you can take the phone to ANY Carrier that supports GSM. Basically if you bought a phone from ATTWS, and now you don't want ATTWS but you want VZW now, and you wish to keep the phone, you must get the phone unlocked to allow it to be used with a VZW plan.

Simply put:

Locked phone works on the carrier it was purchased for

Unlocked phone works on any carrier that supports the phone

I dont know why you used Verizon as an Example Because their CDMA. Even if you did get your attws phone unlocked you wouldnt be able use it with verizon because the two are incompattible.
a good example would have been swithching from attws to cingular or t-mobile

Posted by: PhillyemtT3

Quote:

I dont know why you used Verizon as an Example Because their CDMA. Even if you did get you attws phone unlocked you wouldnt be able use it with verizon because the two are incompattible

I didn't want to confuse the kid, so I used it as an example, I didn't feel the need to get into what carriers are compatible with what phones, he asked a direct question, I gave him a direct answer....there fore, I don't know why you brought it up rather then leaving it just. It was an example, nothing more.

Posted by: PhillyemtT3

[QUOTE]So let's say you have an AT&T GSM phone and you want to use your phone on the Cingular network. Don't you need to also have a Cingular account?

I keep reading that you can unlock your phone and use it on other networks that support that phone, but I guess I haven't seen the practical advantage in doing so.

Who here has unlocked their phone and jumped onto other providers? What else can you do?[QUOTE]

You will need a cingular account yes. Just because the phone can be used on cingular's network doesn't mean it is free

. The only real advantage is getting a phone that cingular doesn't sell from ATTWS....so for agrument sake...lets say cingular doesn't sell the SE T616 (which they do), but ATTWS does....but you really like the T616 and want to use it on your cingular account....you buy it from ATTWS, unlock it, copy settings from your current phone to the T616 (providing your already on gsm network) or take it in and have them put the settings in. And poof, you're one of the VERY few with a T616 on cingular.....Understand?

It's basically just buying a phone one carrier doesn't sell, unlocking it, and now you can use that phone on the carrier that didn't sell it.

My old Nokia 3360 was unlocked, bought it from ATTWS, kept the contract for a year, then move to Cingular which at the time had a much better plan, and kept the same 3360, no need to buy another phone sinse mine was unlocked.

Posted by: aajr

The cost of roaming when travelling overseas is PROHIBITIVE. By unlocking my 68i I am able to remove my U.S. provider's sim card and use a sim card purchased from a provider in the GSM compatible foreign country I am visiting. By doing so I avoid the prohibitive roaming rates I would have to pay if I was still using my U.S. provider's sim card in the foreign country. Thus, I have purchased and used prepaid Orange sim cards in Hong Kong and Thailand for use when visiting those countries. The cost of local calls as well as calls to the U.S. using the foreign sim cards is considerably less than that if I had used my U.S. provider's sim card. The only disadvantage is that each sim card has a unique telephone number associated with it and thus your U.S. telephone number is inoperative when you are using another sim card.