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If I have an iPhone 4 that has been officially unlocked by AT&T (because my 2-year contract with them has run its course), can I use it with one of Virgin's plans? I would assume that the answer is yes, but none of the stories address this issue, either with Virgin or with Cricket.

phdtop, on 07 June 2012 - 06:26 AM, said:

Unfortunately, no. Virgin, Cricket and Sprint's iPhones run on CDMA network and AT&T iPhone runs on GSM (SIM cards), so the AT&T iPhone is incompatible with Virgin, Cricket and Sprint's networks.

These two carriers should have ATT and Verizon shaking in their boots. Cricket does have crappy coverage, but Virgin has the same coverage as Sprint...

I just got my 64gb iPhone 4S unlocked from ATT (I cancelled my service, paid the ETF and now have a free roaming phone)...

But the $120 per month I spend with ATT for the BARE MINIMUM of service does not compare to the $50 I get for MORE from Virgin... ATT is going to have to combat this, because they wont allow iPhone goPhones... I suspect this will change soon enough though, it will have to...

If it werent for CDMA not doing voice and data at the same time, I would jump ship... I will jump ship once a carrier signs on with GSM that is pre-paid.

This article confuses the plan prices. It's $35/$45/$55 per month for the three plans, before the auto-pay discount.

Besides the voice/data thing, the other advantage AT&T has is HSDPA+, so their users can get faster cellular data speeds than Virgin Mobile's.

jbman73175, on 07 June 2012 - 07:55 AM, said:

Which should lead to the obvious follow-up question... can out-of-contract CDMA iPhones from Sprint or Verizon be used with Virgin's network?

Maybe this is only an obvious question to me because I've already been considering going back to Sprint when my Verizon contract is up. That jump would most likely involve an upgrade to the unannounced next iPhone -- but I may well have second thoughts, if I also have the option to use my current Verizon iPhone 4 with Virgin...

zarmanto, on 07 June 2012 - 10:33 AM, said:

If I remember correctly, it goes like this: all phones have a SIM. GSM phones (for the most part) have a removable one. If you have an out of contract AT&T iPhone you can use it on Sprint(?) but you will have to install a Sprint SIM in the phone. CDMA (Verizon) doesn't have removable SIMS and therefore can't be used on other carriers including those who use a CDMA network. That is the reason that the only unlocked iPhone you can buy from Apple is the AT&T/GSM version.

Jasonmwa, on 07 June 2012 - 02:41 PM, said:

If I remember correctly, it goes like this: all phones have a SIM. GSM phones (for the most part) have a removable one. If you have an out of contract AT&T iPhone you can use it on Sprint(?) but you will have to install a Sprint SIM in the phone. CDMA (Verizon) doesn't have removable SIMS and therefore can't be used on other carriers including those who use a CDMA network. That is the reason that the only unlocked iPhone you can buy from Apple is the AT&T/GSM version.

I've actually done a bit of research on this, and I'm reasonably certain that it's not as simple as that. First, the iPhone 4S purchased directly from Apple can indeed be used on any GSM carrier -- AT&T is just the largest (and most well known) US based GSM carrier which is fully compatible with that phone. The SIM card itself is only relevant to GSM networks; if you put a "Sprint SIM" in an iPhone, all it would do is enable roaming on GSM partners of Sprint. (As far as I know, those partners are primarily international carriers.) Additionally, if you read the fine print on Apple's website, it includes disclaimers in multiple places which basically state that their unlocked phones are not intended to be used on CDMA carriers -- but they'll work just fine on any compatible GSM networks, either domestically or internationally.

But here's where things get truly murky: the real issue with CDMA is more one of policies held by those CDMA carriers, not necessarily one of technical incompatibility. Much like every GSM SIM card contains an "IMEI" (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number which uniquely identifies that card on their network, CDMA phones all have a hard-coded MEID (Mobile Equipment Identifiers) number onboard -- but unlike those SIM cards, the MEID cannot be "swapped out" of the phone; that ID will always belong to that phone. So the technical answer is, if the MEID is correctly entered into a particular CDMA carrier's usage authorization database, then the phone will work on their network.

The policies issue is, according to most of the information I've read, neither Verizon nor Sprint have historically been particularly willing to add new MEID numbers to their respective databases, unless it's for a phone that was specifically sold for use on their network, either by the carrier directly or through one of their partner resellers. Consequently, since the two largest CDMA carriers generally refuse to do it, most people make the automatic assumption that it can't be done -- which is of course, exactly what they want, in order to protect their high contract pricing. In fact, I would argue that it's exactly the same model as the cartels of generations gone by.

Which leads me full-circle back to a clarified rewording of my question: Since Virgin Mobile doesn't appear to be party to any of the established cartels, would they willingly add the MEID of an out-of-contract CDMA phone to their database?

(Of course, I expect I'll probably have to call Virgin to find out for certain.)

nmpike, on 07 June 2012 - 08:11 AM, said:

AT&T does not officially support iPhone goPhones but my son has been using one for a couple of years now. If you don't mind not having data capabilities other than WiFi, that's a way to go. We first used my old iPhone 3G that I jail broke and unlocked. It worked fine for a long time but I bricked it up accidentally during an update. So I took out the goPhone sim card from that phone and put it into an original iPhone that has not been altered in any way and it worked just fine. I also tried it with my iPhone 3GS (both out of contract) and it still works. I think, as long as you can activate a goPhone sim card on a cell phone, you can then put it into an iPhone and use it as long as you don't mind the limitations.