The John Legere Uncarrier revolution has turned the wireless industry on its head. Whether you are a big fan of T-mobile or not, you have to thank John Legere for reducing your wireless bill and finally putting the customer in control. You now have the option of walking out on your contract and have the Wireless companies bend over backwards to try to keep or gain you as a new customer. This has been an extremely shady industry where the Customer Service Reps pretty much tell you anything over the phone, mess up your account and leave you holding the bag. This has happened to all of us. Hopefully this uncarrier revolution continues to make changes for the better.
The US cellphone industry is slowly heading on par with Europe and the rest of the world. Buying phones and phone service in those countries are 2 separate transactions. The phones are not tied to a carrier and you are free to move from one carrier to another – just switch the SIM card and you are good to go. GSM companies always used a SIM card and going forward LTE is going to be SIM card based.
What this will do is also create a very healthy secondary market for the used Cellphones. We have already seen some of that with the launch of iphone 6 where companies like Gazelle no longer had the monopoly of purchasing that phone from you. Companies are now tripping over each other to offer you the highest trade in price for the cellphones.
One company that you should consider for selling and purchasing your phones is swappa.com. It does not get much attention but that site brings buyers and sellers together and charges a very small fee for using their marketplace. The seller on Swappa pays a flat $10 sale fee and the paypal fees (of course!) . I have bought and sold stuff on swappa with very good results and I have saved a ton of money as I did not have to pay the high Ebay or Amazon fees. As an added bonus swappa does a verification of the IMEI number prior the posting of the phone – something Ebay and Amazon just do not do. Swappa will not advertise the IMEI number on the site after verifying that the IMEI is clear.. This verification keeps the unscrupulous sellers out of the swappa marketplace. It is safer to purchase phones on swappa.com than Amazon, Ebay or Craigslist. Swappa also handles the transaction post sale and will work with the buyer and the seller, if there is an issue with the phone. That is a whole lot of value for a small $10 fee.
( Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Swappa in any way)
So what used Smartphones should you purchase
1) Verizon iphone 5s: It is running about $380 on Swappa.com and that is nearly half of what it sold for 1 year ago. The advantage of the Verizon iphone 5s is that is factory unlocked and will work on Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and any other GSM carrier.
2) Nexus 5 : This phone is running about $280 on Swappa.com and the price is dropping fast. The Nexus 6/X is right around the corner. This is a pure android phone and does not have any modifications to the software. This phone is fully unlocked and will work on all GSM carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile. It will also work on Sprint affiliated CDMA carriers. For some reason Verizon decided not to support this phone. I am hoping that Verizon supports the Nexus 6/X. That would make it the first phone where a single version of that device is capable of working on every US Network – true network freedom.
3) Any Verizon LTE phone: Verizon reached an agreement with the FCC that any of their LTE phones would be fully unlocked. If the Verizon phone has LTE bands and has been activated on the Verizon Network – it will work on AT&T, T-Mobile and all other GSM carriers.
Caution: If the Verizon LTE phone is brand new and has never been activated – it is still locked to Verizon. The phone gets unlocked after it is activated on the Verizon Network, the first time.
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