Which Verizon Phones are SIM Unlocked?

[Red Storm]

Long story short: Company VP asked me about his daughter. She travels overseas a lot (in this particular case, India). She currently has an iPhone 4 I think. What they want is the ability to go overseas and just buy and use a SIM from a local provider there.

So my question is, which Verizon phone(s) could she upgrade to or buy that are SIM unlocked for international use?

 

[cronos]

I'm pretty sure that the newer ones are all SIM unlocked as they were forced to do that because of FCC regulation regarding the LTE frequency that they use.

I'm not sure about the cutoff time of 'newer', but I know iPhone 5 is one of them, so it's probably safe to say it includes anything that comes out in the last nine months or so.

 

[Red Storm]

Well I do know the iPhone 5 and all other LTE Verizon phones are SIM unlocked, but I guess what I'm asking is which phone is the best to go with? The iPhone needs a micro SIM, is it easy enough to find the new SIMs for use in India?

 

[cronos]

In the OP, you asked: "my question is, which Verizon phone(s) could she upgrade to or buy that are SIM unlocked for international use?", and I believe I have answered that question properly. She could upgrade to any newer Verizon phones as they are all SIM unlocked.

Now, if you wanted to know which phone is 'best' to go with, and whether it is easy enough to find SIM cards in India, these are new questions entirely and I'll defer to someone who actually knows the answer

Note that iPhone 4 and 4S use micro-SIM, while iPhone 5 uses nano-SIM. If I have to guess, I'll say it's probably easier in India to find any kind of SIM cards, SIM cutters, or SIM adapters than here. But let's hear from someone who've actually been there.

 

[Enrique2SIM]

Hi,


What it is important to bear in mind is know which bands are available in India and based on that information select a model that can operate on that bands. Above are the bands existing in India:


Also you can consider buy a dual SIM device with which you can keep your old SIM card overseas and buy a free SIM card when you arrive to India.


Regards

 

[bearxor]

Is 4G LTE service important?

If its not, then I think almost any phone you get now will work.

The CDMA iPhone 4 won't work because it's CDMA only.

If he's the type of person in inferring he is, I would tell him to simply buy a new iPhone 5C or 5S and then add international service from Verizon. It's a little bit expensive. Probably around $2 a minute or so and $25/100MB. But it's easy and that's the price you isy for convenience.

The far more elegant solution would be to buy an Android phone and port her number to Google Voice. Use it to send/receive all calls and swap the sim out with a prepaid local sim in whichever area you're at. This way the phone number is always the google voice number.

However, when I try to explain this, most peoples eyes start to gloss over when I say "buy a prepaid sim", so YMMV.

tl;dr - Any LTE capable phone you buy on Verizon is capable of voice and at least EDGE in almost all the world and comes SIM-unlocked out of the box.

 

[Joe1987]

I'd grab a VZ 5c or 5s, both are sim unlocked, and they're a known device overseas, she'll get 3G service with a sim card purchased there.

http://gigaom.com/2012/09/24/why-the-verizon-iphone-5-is-a-globetrotters-best-friend/

The 5s and 5c are the same deal.

IIRC, they haven't rolled out 4G in India yet, so the 3G radios are perfect for India. Show him how to use a paperclip to pop out the sim card tray and she's golden. If he really wants to set her up, show him a sim card cutter from Amazon so she can make her own nano sims from micro and standard sims.

http://www.amazon.com/QQ-Tech-Cutte...id=1380604418&sr=8-1&keywords=nano+sim+cutter $7 and she can travel the world I have one & they work perfectly.

 

[notposting]

Yep. She already has an iPhone, so keep her on the platform. Get a new 5S and explain the SIM situation to her, and g2g.