Apple Now Selling Unlocked iPhones
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Great News for Prepaid users
AT&T made a killing on iPhone plans. With an official "unlocked" phone then people can use the iPhone on a prepaid plan and not have to pay over $100 a month to use it. T-Mobile users can use it with the $50 unlimited talk, text and internet plan (prepaid) and because it is limited to 2G they don't have to worry about the 200MB limit of high speed data.
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Actually they cannot....
Neither the iPhone nor the vast majority of post paid phones will work on a pre-paid account.
Pre-paid phones will work on post paid accounts, but usually not vice versa.
This is because the pre-paid technology is different, and the network is different, so a phone has to be specifically designed for a pre-paid account or it won't work on one.
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That might be the case for CDMA (Verizon, Sprint, Virgin Mobile, etc) but it is not the case for GSM. All the authentication is done on the SIM and not the phone so if your SIM works in the phone then the phone is good to use with prepaid. It means as I indicated above for users of T-Mobile and AT&T prepaid GSM services in the USA. The problem is that the microSIM is not as common so you might need to get your existing one cut or get a new one from the carrier.
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my coworker/friend has StraightTalk prepaid which uses simcard. he said ST prepaid only works on ST prepaid phones. he said he tried on his unlocked phone and has no signal. i want him to try it on my unlocked phone, that fool refuses cus he said he already tried on his unlocked phone.
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I guess some prepaid, like Tracfone, has special firmware on top of it, required on their phones. But prepaid from AT&T and T-Mobile should both work out the box.
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langJun 15, 2011, 8:51 AM
The only issue I could see is the data plan. With AT&T you have to have a specific data plan to get the browser to work. Same with Blackberry. If there is no prepaid equivilent then you are stuck with voice and SMS.
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iPhones will work with prepaid carriers like AT&T prepaid Airvoice, H2O, Simple Mobile and T-mobile.I activate them for customers everyday.
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