Can you swap SIMs between two Carriers back and forth?

[consultant1027]

After being with several carriers over the years I settled on Verizon because it had the best speed/coverage when I was traveling outside of mid/large cities. Seems like carriers like T-Mobile up until recently really catered to those in-city dwellers as I tried them for a year and coverage/speeds were terrible once I got outside the city into the out suburbs and on road trips going through more rural areas.

I'm disappointed though that Verizon's "5G Nationwide" network is essentiall a "fake 5G" network with speeds comparable to what you get with 4G LTE+ (aka LTE-A or Advanced). Apparently Verizon didn't buy the mid-band frequencies necessary like T-Mobile did and therefore, either you have super blazing 5G millimeter wave speeds if you are lucky to be near one of the few in-city towers in a select few cities, or you have speeds near what you had all along.

So I'm curious to test at various locations (not in downtown city areas) the "5G" speeds I get on Verizon versus T-Mobile as I think T-Mobile's coverage overall has come a long way and I think they may have a better 5G Nationwide strategy that better balances coverage with speed.

When I travel abroad, many times I buy a SIM card for a local carrier in that country and use a local mobile number that way. Couldn't I similarly sign up for a T-Mobile cheap pre-paid plan and pop the T-Mobile SIM in temporarily to test data speeds. I'd essentially have two different phone numbers at two different carriers that I could switch between. Or is there something in the US where one carrier detects your IMEI on another carrier and automatically deactivates your account? If I'm correct, they only automatically deactivate your account if you TRANSFER YOUR NUMBER to another carrier.

 

[L0n3N1nja]

If you have a payment plan on the phone right now it may not activate with the Tmobile SIM but otherwise you shouldn't have any problems swapping SIM cards.

Your cell phone provider doesn't tie your account to your phone hardware, it's the phone number, don't port your phone number and the Verizon account won't be effected.

Back when I had my Verizon S7 I was able to pop a Tmobile prepaid SIM in and test with no issues, but that was before Verizon started locking their phones.

 

[mustang7757]

Yes as long as the phone is sim unlocked , I do this with my Tmobile sim and Att

 

[Rukbat]

As long as the phone is unlocked - and has radios on the second carrier's frequencies. Most do, but many don't. (A dual-SIM phone works exactly like that, though - when you switch to the other SIM [most dual-SIM phones are dual standby - you can have only one SIM active at a time], you're switching carriers - exactly what you want to do.)