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Pegasus
Premium Member
join:2008-01-04
united state

Pegasus

Premium Member

[iPhone] Unlocking sim questions. Iphone 4S Sprint

Hello all.

I have a Sprint Iphone 4S. Im just so absolutely fed up with sprint's data & im looking to escape to Tmob Or straight talk.

I know Sprint doesn't Unlock under any circumstances domestically.

I have seen those little sim unlocker things you put in the sim tray with desired sim to unlock the phone but never have used one or known anyone to use them.

What is everyone thoughts and suggestions on these? Im running 7.0.4 jail broken.

RiseAbove
Premium Member
join:2004-01-30

RiseAbove

Premium Member

Don't waste all your time and energy trying to get it unlocked or using some third party method. Take your phone and either trade it in at Tmobile store or go to gazelle.com and sell it there. Then take the money and get an iPhone 5S or 5c. Even if you got the 4S to work unless you are in a re-farmed area for Tmobile you would not get signal on the 3g/4g bands because you don't have 1700/2100 mhz on the phone. Another option is to go on ebay and buy a Verizon 5S or 5C and then go to T-Mobile or Straight Talk and start service because Verizon iPhones are unlocked out of the box so you can use them on any network. Im actually using an ATT sim card in a Verizon iPhone 5S right now and my wife has her tmobile sim in one. They work perfectly.

koolman2
Premium Member
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK

koolman2

Premium Member

Remember that the Verizon phones may not have all the T-Mobile LTE bands, so LTE may not work in some areas if you go that route.

Thinkdiff
MVM,
join:2001-08-07
Bronx, NY

Thinkdiff

MVM,

The 5s and 5c sold in the US to Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T are all the same model:
»www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/

Only the Sprint 5s/5c (out of the major carriers) are different - they actually support more bands.

koolman2
Premium Member
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK

koolman2

Premium Member

Ah, right. I'd forgotten that they combined the bands in the 5S and 5C models; I was thinking the 5.

Pegasus
Premium Member
join:2008-01-04
united state

Pegasus

Premium Member

Thanks for the replies everyone. i guess i have my answer and ill just b waiting until i can afford to buy a new phone with Tmob.

acadiel
Press fire to begin
Premium Member
join:2002-06-22
Atlanta
Apple AirPort Express (2012)
Apple AirPort Extreme (2013)
ARRIS SB6183

acadiel to Pegasus

Premium Member

to Pegasus
said by Pegasus:

Hello all.

I have a Sprint Iphone 4S. Im just so absolutely fed up with sprint's data & im looking to escape to Tmob Or straight talk.

I know Sprint doesn't Unlock under any circumstances domestically.

I have seen those little sim unlocker things you put in the sim tray with desired sim to unlock the phone but never have used one or known anyone to use them.

What is everyone thoughts and suggestions on these? Im running 7.0.4 jail broken.

Sprint will be unlocking within the next 12 months.

There was a CTIA news release last year (Dec) about unlocking phones:

There are six principles:
1) Disclosure - Must post requirements for unlocking for both prepaid and postpaid on their website
2) Postpaid unlocking policy
3) Prepaid unlocking policy
4) Notice - notifying customers when their device is eligible for unlocking, and automatically unlock the device when it becomes eligible for unlocking (!?).
5) Response time - two day turnaround
6) Deployed personnel unlocking policy

PDF: »www.ctia.org/docs/defaul ··· king.pdf

Carriers are supposed to implement three of the above principles within 3 months of the CTIA document (December 12th, so that means by March 12th?). The rest need to be implemented within 12 months of the CTIA document (December 12th).

Of course, these dates might have changed since I last looked (I cut and pasted from a thread I put on S4GRU).

dn
@rr.com

dn to Pegasus

Anon

to Pegasus
You don't have to unlock your iPhone to use it on Straight talk. Just go to Wal-Mart and buy the activation kit with the cdma access code and one month of service. $59.

Activate online or call the support line. Support isn't the best but you can dump sprint. I did. Make sure you have your account number and pin if you want to port your phone number.

Check google for more info. Also check about the apn setup process. Good luck.

Thinkdiff
MVM,
join:2001-08-07
Bronx, NY

Thinkdiff

MVM,

If you have a Sprint iPhone, it still needs to be unlocked.

StraightTalk works on AT&T locked phones.

Pegasus
Premium Member
join:2008-01-04
united state

Pegasus to dn

Premium Member

to dn
said by dn :

You don't have to unlock your iPhone to use it on Straight talk. Just go to Wal-Mart and buy the activation kit with the cdma access code and one month of service. $59.

Activate online or call the support line. Support isn't the best but you can dump sprint. I did. Make sure you have your account number and pin if you want to port your phone number.

Check google for more info. Also check about the apn setup process. Good luck.

Well i would LOVE to go over to ST but i did Google and everywhere say's no.

I did go on the straight talk website and put in my IMEI number and it looked like everything went okay but im still skeptical. I just dont want to spend the money for the sim card & 1 month of service and find out it wont work and have wasted that money.
Pegasus

Pegasus to Thinkdiff

Premium Member

to Thinkdiff
said by Thinkdiff:

If you have a Sprint iPhone, it still needs to be unlocked.

StraightTalk works on AT&T locked phones.

Thats what im pretty much getting from all my information im gathering.
Pegasus

Pegasus

Premium Member

Update:

I have successfully activated my 4s & mothers 4 on straight talk using the "CDMA access kit" from Walmart.

What a painful experience it was. Took 3 days of talking to support to get these phones working and activated with new numbers.

Word of warning for anyone else who might bring a sprint iPhone over to straight talk... Its quite a process. its nothing like the streamlined process straight talk claims it to be.

On straight talk's screens everything looked good and the phones "should" have been getting service but were not.

After enough ##update# & turning the phone on & off for a lifetime the phones still did not work. even restoring the phone's as new didnt help. tickets were issued & i was instructed to call back the next day.

what eventually happened was the phones miraculously got the popup "iphone activated" after 24 hours.

so what im thinking is it takes 24 hours for what ever process happens on sprints side to take hold.

As far as service its the same old sprint service. the phones even display "sprint" as the network name instead of "home"

visual voice mail & iMessage work just fine & data is the usual suck fest it always was on sprint, at least in my area. The 2.5Gb cap is a little annoying to me because i had sprint for 11 years, it was my first ever cell phone so i have never worried about data caps but i look at it this way. The speeds they throttle you too are the same speeds i always get with sprint's 3G so really its no big deal to me.

Pegasus

Pegasus to dn

Premium Member

to dn
said by dn :

Also check about the apn setup process. Good luck.

APN downloads aren't needed for CDMA i guess. tried it anyway when i couldn't get the phones working at first LOL.
Pegasus

Pegasus to Thinkdiff

Premium Member

to Thinkdiff
said by Thinkdiff:

If you have a Sprint iPhone, it still needs to be unlocked.

StraightTalk works on AT&T locked phones.

Come to find out ST also works on Tmobile unlocked iphones in addition to locked & unlocked ATT phones on the GSM side.

The sprint phones do not need to be unlocked to work. mine are working just fine now. they just need to be fully deactivated from sprint and not carry a flag in the system for non payment or past due balances.
Pegasus

Pegasus to acadiel

Premium Member

to acadiel
said by acadiel:

Sprint will be unlocking within the next 12 months.

Not sure how that will pan out for me since my service with sprint has ended but i hope i can get the phones unlocked when that time comes because the CDMA access kit came with sim's for both AT&T & T mobile service. I would absolutely LOVE to be able to use HSPA+ on my 4s. ill be holding on to those sim's for that day!

Thinkdiff
MVM,
join:2001-08-07
Bronx, NY

Thinkdiff to Pegasus

MVM,

to Pegasus
Straighttalk on CDMA must be new or I never heard of it at least, so thanks for the follow up.

The "straighttalk" that most people talk about is the AT&T MVNO service. The T-Mobile Straighttalk SIM cards work on a TMO MVNO. Guess they are now also a sprint MVNO.

Pretty crafty of Walmart, but seems like a disaster for reviewing and comparing the service. Depending on which you pick, you'll get completely different experiences.

Pegasus
Premium Member
join:2008-01-04
united state

Pegasus

Premium Member

Not sure if its for all branded verizon phone's but at least if its a verizon iPhone it will also use Verizon CDMA. I should of mentioned in my post but one of the problems i encountered when i was first trying to get the iPhone 4 to work was one of the reps was trying to register the phone on verizon's network. So you have to be very clear which company the iphone is coming from if its a sprint or verizon iphone.