How do I find out...

[S Freud]

How do I find out if a cellphone is sold only for a certain carrier?

I heard that if you call up and ask cingular or Verizon that they will unlock your phone for free unless its only sold through that carrier.

Is this true?

How can I find out if its only sold through one carrier?

 

[S Freud]

No one knows?

 

[erub]

Never heard about your rumor

Verizon operates a CDMA network on the 850 MHz/1900 bands, and as such there are very few providers that will take a phone from them. Verizon won't usually activate phones that aren't through them, because they lack Verizon's specialized software. Therefore's there's almost 0 point of 'unlocking' a Verizon phone, if that is even possible.

Cingular is GSM, and I'm not sure what their current phone locking policy is..I know with T-Mobile they will unlock your phone after 3 months, but with Cingular for awhile the world phones were coming unlocked..not sure if thats the case, I'm going to pick up a China SIM soon to test out if I need to get my LG CU500 unlocked before I move over there.