For the longest time, the the issue with the US smartphone market was that you had to purchase the phones directly from the Cellular company. The companies sold you the phone locked to their network. Each carrier had their own rules on unlocking the phones. Carriers held you hostage such that once you completed your contract, you would have to purchase another smartphone to move to a different carrier, making it financially prohibitive. In the rest of the world, purchasing a phone and buying service were 2 completely separate transactions. The phones are sold completely unlocked. You are not tied to someone’s lousy network just because of a locked phone. Unlocking is a process by which you can take the phone to another carrier and use it on the new carrier. For example taking an AT&T phone to T-Mobile etc.
The US market is slowly evolving thanks to T-Mobile’s Uncarrier initiative. Down the road, purchasing the phone and finding a carrier are going to be 2 completely separate transactions. And that is a great thing. Why? Because carriers had you hoodwinked. They would sign you up for a 2 year contract and give you a new phone for $200. If used that same phone after the 2 years were up, your bill never went down. No more, now your bill will go down after you have paid off your phone, the new transparency forces the carrier to be more ethical and fair – Thank you John Legere and T-Mobile
The USA cell phone market is divided into 2 different technologies GSM and CDMA. AT&T/ T-Mobile are GSM providers ( think SIM card) and Verizon/Sprint are CDMA providers. Further complicating the issue is the frequency that is used by the carriers – 800, 850, 1900. For a phone to work to work on a different carrier, it should be able to accept that technology and frequency – think radio.
Verizon and Sprint being CDMA carriers require you to call them to activate the phone. The phone IMEI number must be in their database for the phone to work. Furthermore Sprint and Verizon have a gentlemen’s agreement (collusion) where they will not activate each other’s phones. Your Verizon phone should for all practical purposes work on Sprint but Sprint will not put the IMEI number in their database. Sprint will only accept the IMEI number from the manufacturer. Same for Verizon
Take the Sprint iphone 4s/5/5c/5s or Sprint Samsung Galaxy. Read the specs. They have the GSM bands to support T-Mobile/AT&T etc but when you insert the T-Mobile sim in the phone, it will not work – Why because the phone is locked to Sprint. Sprint will not unlock the phone no matter what. Even after you complete your contract and have fully paid for that phone. This is how Sprint unethically and desperately holds on to you . Their last hope is to make it financially prohibitive for you to switch carriers, You want to move to a different carrier – no problem just buy a new phone (but we really don’t want you to leave).
Enter the Nexus 5. You can purchase it directly from the Google play store or used at swappa.com. This phone will work on Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile and every other GSM provider. This phone is fully unlocked. The only carrier the Nexus 5 does not work on is Verizon. There in no reason for the phone to not work on Verizon (it has the verizon radios) other than Verizon will not activate it, presumably because this phone will break the gentlemen’s agreement with Sprint and expose their collusion.
You can use this phone on Sprint, give them the IMEI number and they will activate it. If you do not like Sprint service – you can take an AT&T sim card to that phone and AT&T will become your new carrier. You can move this phone to Cricket, , Straightalk, T-Mobile, Metro PCS, by just inserting the SIM cards of the new carrier. At the end of the day it is your phone and Google has does us a great service into making sure that you use that phone on every carrier in the world (except Verizon)
short link to this page http://bit.ly/1ldRaMZ
jackmehra 