Programming a phone number on a GS3

deca2499

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Jan 16, 2013
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Hello all,

Forgive the (maybe) rather newbie question, but, what are the steps to program a phone number on a phone?

I have an SCH-I535 with 4.1.1 on it and am trying to figure out how to "program" the phone number into the phone. While it is a Verizon phone, I have no intention of using Verizon as the carrier. I do not really care about using the 4G capibilites of the phone, as there are other capibilities of the phone which I value a bit more.

At this point, I think I have it rooted as I have the icon for Superuser on the Apps screen. I figure as long as I can get the phone number on the phone, I should be able use almost any carrier I want.

Any help, thoughts?

Thanks in advance! !
 

gtbarry

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Dec 2, 2012
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In the USA we use two different types of phone technologies.

GSM
AT&T and t-mobile

CDMA (TDMA?)
Verizon and Sprint

Your phone is assigned to Verizon. So, you are locked to Verizon. I honestly know very little about Verizon/Sprint phones. PERHAPS you could move it to Sprint or another of the smaller carries that use CDMA technology.

In very rare instances, a Verizon phone can be a "world phone" and work on both types of networks. I don't know if this is the case with your phone. Unless you can open the back cover of your phone and see a SIM card slot, your phone will not work on GSM.
 

deca2499

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This phone to an extent is a world phone. It does have the removable SIM card and has been tested for the calling aspect on the ATT network. So in this instance, it does have both CDMA and GSM.
 

deca2499

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What I mean by programing a number is, other than using a SIM card, how would I get the phone number onto the phone. Presuming there were no SIM card, how do I 'tie' a phone number to the phone? Thus far, I have come up empty as far as this goes. If I were to want to put the phone onto a prepaid network, I thought that they would need to program the phone with the number. I have an older HTC Touch Pro 2 from Sprint, and to put the number on that would require me to do something like **4089*#. It would then open a menu that I could tell it what the phone number I want to have on the phone would be. Does this answer your question? Feel free to tell me I am rambling... LOL
 

anon(94115)

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You don't tie a number to the phone, the carrier will assign it to you. If you want any data, you are going to have to go to a cdma carrier.

It doesn't have to be Verizon, but if you want to change it, you have to have the phone flashed over to the carrier

Sent from the nexus of the Android world, the SGS3.
 

deca2499

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So the question I keep having myself is, even thou the phone is capable of 4G LTE, are you required to use the 4G LTE? If not, why not active such a phone on a carrier that does not support 4G phones? :confused:
 

anon(94115)

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As far as your second question the g has nothing to do with it. You have gsm phones and cdma phones. You have to activate the phone on one of those two types of networks. You have a cdma verizon phone. If you want another carrier, you have to flash it to that carrier.

Sent from the nexus of the Android world, the SGS3.
 
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gone down south

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To lay it out for you....

On a GSM phone (which in the US means TMobile, AT+T or an MVNO working on their networks) you can switch numbers and service just by popping a new sim card in.
Worst case, if you bought the phone subsidized the original carrier may need to release it for you.

On a CMDA network (Sprint and Verizon), that phone is 100% locked to the original carrier. They MAY under certain circumstances release the phone, but don't count on it.

What you're calling "program a number" I think is actually "initiating service with a carrier". You can't do this yourself, you need to have the carrier do it for you.