Unlocked Cell Phones?

[MyThirdEye]

I heard that unlocked cell phones don't work all the time? I'm trying to find a decent cell phone for Alltel, and it's really hard. Most of them just suck.

Anyway, is that true that they rarely ever work? When I buy it, will the Alltel workers bitch about having to program it?

Explain to me the whole unlocked situation, please.


Thanks.

 

[onlyCOpunk]

That's laughable. THey will definately work for phone calls and texting. Internet has to be configured. In my case I just bought a new Rokr Z6 from the motorola site and it had an option to configure the internet itself and it did and now everything works fine. I have bought a locked cell phone for probably my last 4, and I have had no problems. In fact Nokia prides itself on selling unlcoked phones

 

[MyThirdEye]

I might have to check out a Nokia

Thanks

 

[Wonderful Pork]

Originally posted by: amjohns5
I heard that unlocked cell phones don't work all the time? I'm trying to find a decent cell phone for Alltel, and it's really hard. Most of them just suck.

Anyway, is that true that they rarely ever work? When I buy it, will the Alltel workers bitch about having to program it?

Explain to me the whole unlocked situation, please.


Thanks.

Unlocking is slightly different for GSM or CDMA phones.

I believe that Alltel is a CDMA provider (though they do own some GSM somewhere).

Anyway, for an unlocked GSM phone (AT&T or T-Mo) just pop your SIM card in and you're good to go. If the phone is "locked" then it will ask for a subsidy code after the phone boots up.

For CDMA the provider has to program it, and allow the ESN to access the network. Not complicated, however Sprint and Verizon generally do not allow non-branded phones on their network (Sprint doesn't for sure). I don't know if Alltel allows this or not.

Phones generally will work on either CDMA or GSM (there are some "true world phones" that are CDMA and accept SIM cards while overseas). It is NOT possible to use an unlocked GSM phone on a CDMA network or vice versa.

I don't know the full situation since Alltel provides both GSM and CDMA depending on location. Trying to use the incorrect network type phone is the only reason I can think of for an unlocked phone not working.

 

[MyThirdEye]

I'll give them a call tomorrow if I can remember.

 

[BabaBooey]

I used a UNLOCKED samsung D600 ( EUROPE MODEL ) on t-mobile for 2 years and never once had a issue...:beer:


But now it sits in a drawer now that the iphone is in the hizouse ....