Network unlock code

[21stNow]

If you bought a non subsidized phone then you would not have to unlock it as it would not be locked by a carrier and you would not need their permission.

This is not true. I buy non-subsidized phones all the time and they are still locked to the carrier. Carriers in the US do not maintain two different types of phones in their inventory (locked and unlocked). They may provide an unlock code upon request, but the phone is not sold unlocked.

 

[dpham00]

This is what I'm getting at here:

"then you should know that starting today it is illegal to unlock a subsidized phone or tablet that's bought through a U.S. carrier."

Subsidized is the keyword here. Saying it is illegal with no clarification is only partially correct. It would be like saying carrying a gun is illegal in the U. S. It's only illegal when certain criteria is meet. Like carrying a gun in to a bar.

So in our case here it's only illegal if you bought a subsidized phone from a U.S. carrier.

That's all I was trying to say donec. I'm done thread jacking

If you are on the uncarrier plan, then phones aren't subsidized, so you should be legally able to unlock the phone

Btw, most of Verizon's phones are unlocked so long as they have gsm radios, even while on contract

Sent from my Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II

 

[21stNow]

T-Mobile won't unlock phones that are purchased using the EIP until the balance is paid in full. This may change with T-Mobile's consideration to make exceptions for international travelers, though.

 

[dpham00]

T-Mobile won't unlock phones that are purchased using the EIP until the balance is paid in full. This may change with T-Mobile's consideration to make exceptions for international travelers, though.

Why not just pay retail at best buy, pm tmo, and finance through best buy 18 mo no interest?

Sent from my Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II

 

[Internet_Tough_Guy]

T-Mobile won't unlock phones that are purchased using the EIP until the balance is paid in full. This may change with T-Mobile's consideration to make exceptions for international travelers, though.

+1

OP, you need to just bring your phone in to a store. They recently changed their unlock policy. But the general sense is, if your phone is paid in full, and you have a current account and a few other factors, then they will unlock it for you.

 

[Internet_Tough_Guy]

If you are on the uncarrier plan, then phones aren't subsidized, so you should be legally able to unlock the phone

Sent from my Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II

nope, only if you paid the phone in full. Most people are still buying phones on a payment plan. Esentially uncarrier is just the de-coupling of the phone payments with the service payments. The concept is, once your phone is paid in full, your "overall" monthly bill for service should decrease. No major carrier network does that right now. If you were to finish your VZ plan, and elect to not buy a new phone and sign a new contract, your service rate remains the same, which doesn't makes sense, VZ is then over charging you for the phone you already paid off.

 

[dpham00]

nope, only if you paid the phone in full. Most people are still buying phones on a payment plan. Esentially uncarrier is just the de-coupling of the phone payments with the service payments. The concept is, once your phone is paid in full, your "overall" monthly bill for service should decrease. No major carrier network does that right now. If you were to finish your VZ plan, and elect to not buy a new phone and sign a new contract, your service rate remains the same, which doesn't makes sense, VZ is then over charging you for the phone you already paid off.

What if you bought it at best buy and financed it through them?

Sent from my Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II

 

[Internet_Tough_Guy]

What if you bought it at best buy and financed it through them?

Sent from my Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II

in this case, you own the phone outright in the carrier's eyes. At that point, you just need to simply pick your plan and you're done with it. However, it's at this stage where you will notice that T-Mobile will ALWAYS be cheaper for comparable service. That's b/c VZ and ATT and others still have the phone subsidy cost priced into their monthly service rate, and it can NEVER be split out of that plan even if you brought you own device to use. This is also why it's not worth buying a pre-owned VZ or ATT phone and using it on the same network plans, b/c they'll lock you in for 2 years, yet you're still paying the same price as if you bought a new phone from them. In fact you're paying more over the course of two years if you bring your own device that you bought pre-owned. It's just insane and illogical why they would do it.

T-Mobile's plan is just straight up cheaper. This is essentially what I did. I bought my phone a T-Mobile GN2 pre-owned off ebay. Then I simply just bought a T-Mobile plan and popped in the sim card for service. The phone itself was paid off by the previous owner, so now I own the phone outright. In fact, T-Mobile doesn't even have a record that I own this phone, b/c for all they cared about, the phone was paid off in full by the previous owner and they don't care at that point what happens to the phone.

Now for the rest of my life on T-Mobile, I'm not locked into any contracts and I can switch phones any time I please. I calculated that it's only cheaper for me to do this if I actually keep this phone past 1.5 years vs buying on a T-Mobile classic plan, which is the current industry subsidy model.

 

[dpham00]

in this case, you own the phone outright in the carrier's eyes. At that point, you just need to simply pick your plan and you're done with it. However, it's at this stage where you will notice that T-Mobile will ALWAYS be cheaper for comparable service. That's b/c VZ and ATT and others still have the phone subsidy cost priced into their monthly service rate, and it can NEVER be split out of that plan even if you brought you own device to use. This is also why it's not worth buying a pre-owned VZ or ATT phone and using it on the same network plans, b/c they'll lock you in for 2 years, yet you're still paying the same price as if you bought a new phone from them. In fact you're paying more over the course of two years if you bring your own device that you bought pre-owned. It's just insane and illogical why they would do it.

T-Mobile's plan is just straight up cheaper. This is essentially what I did. I bought my phone a T-Mobile GN2 pre-owned off ebay. Then I simply just bought a T-Mobile plan and popped in the sim card for service. The phone itself was paid off by the previous owner, so now I own the phone outright. In fact, T-Mobile doesn't even have a record that I own this phone, b/c for all they cared about, the phone was paid off in full by the previous owner and they don't care at that point what happens to the phone.

Now for the rest of my life on T-Mobile, I'm not locked into any contracts and I can switch phones any time I please. I calculated that it's only cheaper for me to do this if I actually keep this phone past 1.5 years vs buying on a T-Mobile classic plan, which is the current industry subsidy model.

I bought my Note II for $37 on contract a few months ago on Verizon. Yeah, it sucks that you are paying the same whether you are on contract or not. But I an usually always on contract, since I upgrade my line every 6-9 months. I have 5 lines of service with 2 smartphones including one with unlimited unthrottled 4GLTE and 3 dumb phones and pay $140. Tmo charges $20 per month for the device purchase plan, so taking out $100($20 x 5 lines), I an paying $40 for an equivalent unsubsidized plan for 5 lines of service. Does tmo offer an unsubsidized plan for less than $40 for 5 lines(2 smartphones including one with unlimited unthrottled 4GLTE) with 550 min and unlimited night and weekend and unlimited mobile to mobile, or similar plan ?

Sent from my Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II

 

[Internet_Tough_Guy]

I bought my Note II for $37 on contract a few months ago on Verizon. Yeah, it sucks that you are paying the same whether you are on contract or not. But I an usually always on contract, since I upgrade my line every 6-9 months. I have 5 lines of service with 2 smartphones including one with unlimited unthrottled 4GLTE and 3 dumb phones and pay $140. Tmo charges $20 per month for the device purchase plan, so taking out $100($20 x 5 lines), I an paying $40 for an equivalent unsubsidized plan for 5 lines of service. Does tmo offer an unsubsidized plan for less than $40 for 5 lines(2 smartphones including one with unlimited unthrottled 4GLTE) with 550 min and unlimited night and weekend and unlimited mobile to mobile, or similar plan ?

Sent from my Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II

hmm, doing a quick pricing for you, on TMo it appears you'll be paying (and I'm assuming some features you may or may not need):

Smartphone 1: $50 base + $20 unlimited 4GLTE (note, the base also includes unlimted talk and text and 500mb of 4GLTE data)
Smartphone 2: $30 base + $10 for 2gigs of 4GLTE data (or it is $20 for unlimted 4GLTE like phone#1, or $0 if this phone can live with 500mb of data)
dumbphone1: $10 base
dumbphone2: $10 base
dumbphone3: $10 base

= $120 or $130 or $140 depending on what smartphone2 wants in terms of data amounts

As mentioned before, this includes unlimited night and weekends and t-mobile to t-mobile calling, and unlimited text on all lines, and 500mb of data on each line as a default. AND you get Mobile Hotspot tethering on Smartphone#1, which may or may not be useful if you have tablets you want to connect. No contract.

so it looks comparable to your VZ deal in terms of monthly payment. The TMo is advantagous in your case when you want to bring your own phone (with a preowned phone, i'm thinking likely the case with dumbphones, and smartphone#2) or if you want to keep your phones for a long time (beyond 2 years) or if the number of lines are constantly changing (from 5 to 3 to 4, etc), or if you want to constantly switch smartphones, you don't have to wait out your 2-year contract on a subsidized phone as on VZ, all these points are effects of the no-contract concept on TMo. Additionally, anytime one of your phones use extra data, instead of charging you outrageous overage fees, T-Mobile simply just bumps that phone into the next tier data plan (currently online, it says you'll have to request for this, but I thought they were making it automatic). So if dumbphone uses 1gigs of data, you're only charge an extra $10, and that phone can use up to 2gigs of data at that rate, then it's bumped into the next tier.

BTW: I would check in again on your VZ phone policy which I read recently has changed. They now want you to wait out the FULL 2 years before they'll let you switch phones if you're taking their subsidy. They'll still let you switch phones if you pay to break your contract. Don't quote me on this, but I think this is a change from old policy where you could switch phones & sign a new contract 1.75 years into your current contract. In effect VZ is forcing customers to pay out their full terms (which is fair, they're loosing out otherwise once the customer quits).

I'm thinking your family setup is simliar to mine. I also have 5 lines, 2 smartphones. The difference is, I'm on a grandfather plan (the recently discontinued "value plans", which are essentially bring your own devices plans but with contracts), and I pay....wait of it....$90/mo including tax, but also with a 15% corporate discount. (I also took advantage of the free add a line deal before Tmo switched to the new un-carrier plans, sometime next year, each extra line is $5 each).

Features of my plan, which is locked in for 2 years (but I wish they can lock me in for longer, I mean come on, this is a killer deal):
The two smartphones currently EACH gets 2gigs of 4GLTE speeds, unlimited text (I had to pay a-la-carte for on each phone that needs this feature).
The 3 dumbphones, with only 1 needing unlimited text. We all share 1000 minutes, however, but practically, all the phones just call each other, which is free...lol.

My old grandfathered value plan is even cheaper for me b/c the un-carrier plans bundled text and 500mbs of data for all lines (with a increase in base price). My old value plan allows me to pick and choose the features of data and text a-la-carte. As 2 of my dumbphones do no require text and data, and the 3rd phone doesn't require data, I'm saving at least $15-$25 a month vs the un-carrier plans.

 

[Internet_Tough_Guy]

I bought my Note II for $37 on contract a few months ago on Verizon. Yeah, it sucks that you are paying the same whether you are on contract or not. But I an usually always on contract, since I upgrade my line every 6-9 months. I have 5 lines of service with 2 smartphones including one with unlimited unthrottled 4GLTE and 3 dumb phones and pay $140. Tmo charges $20 per month for the device purchase plan, so taking out $100($20 x 5 lines), I an paying $40 for an equivalent unsubsidized plan for 5 lines of service. Does tmo offer an unsubsidized plan for less than $40 for 5 lines(2 smartphones including one with unlimited unthrottled 4GLTE) with 550 min and unlimited night and weekend and unlimited mobile to mobile, or similar plan ?

Sent from my Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II

btw, I recommend keeping your Note 2. Samsung announced that they will provide upgrades to Note 2, S3s and a few other phones to include features that are in the S4. Anything that's not a hardware component or hardware-limited will be upgraded to S4's specs on the Note 2. No one knows what the Note 3 will entail, likely, it'll be a clone of the S4 but with a better screen (just my guess), and a few UI upgrades for the pen and such. In my book, this isn't worth paying $650+ for...I'm keeping my Note 2 for at least 3 -4 years.

IMO, i think we've hit a ceiling in terms of features they can cram in phones. I don't think we'll see anything dramatically game-changing in the next 2 years. They're constantly tweaking UI features and new programs, but those are mostly software driven. The Note 2 has more than capable hardware to run those new features, which hence is why Samsung will push all the new features to the Note 2. I believe this phone is definitely future proof for at least 3-4 years (depending on what features you really care about, For me it's just access to 4GLTE speeds.)

 

[edtaussig]

Back to the topic I've read (even on the t-mobile forums) where people on 4.1.2 have gotten unlock codes directly
from t-mobile and they didn't work, also some unlocking sites themselves state that you need to roll back to 4.1.1
in order to input an unlock code.
Does anyone know for a fact that's actually possible to SIM Unlock a -stock- 4.1.2 t-mobile version using a code? (assuming
that t-mobile will give out the code when you're travelling overseas)

(btw, if the law actually only applies to 'subsidized' phones, then it would be perfect legal to unlock a phone purchased via a payment
plan from t-mobile, those phones are financed, but they are not subsidized at all, t-mobile may claim otherwise, but that doesn't mean
that they're right)

 

[Tasha Hand]

do you know how I can switch a sprint phone to a different carrier like straight talk?

 

[Internet_Tough_Guy]

Back to the topic I've read (even on the t-mobile forums) where people on 4.1.2 have gotten unlock codes directly
from t-mobile and they didn't work, also some unlocking sites themselves state that you need to roll back to 4.1.1
in order to input an unlock code.
Does anyone know for a fact that's actually possible to SIM Unlock a -stock- 4.1.2 t-mobile version using a code? (assuming
that t-mobile will give out the code when you're travelling overseas)

(btw, if the law actually only applies to 'subsidized' phones, then it would be perfect legal to unlock a phone purchased via a payment
plan from t-mobile, those phones are financed, but they are not subsidized at all, t-mobile may claim otherwise, but that doesn't mean
that they're right)

Were the reported issues that the phone will pass the unblock screen but it cannot make a call? Or the phone won't even pass the unblocking screen? I just received my unblocking code from tmobile. I need to find my old sim card to see if I can unlock my 4.1.2 phone. I'll let the forum know what my results are.

 

[Internet_Tough_Guy]

Back to the topic I've read (even on the t-mobile forums) where people on 4.1.2 have gotten unlock codes directly
from t-mobile and they didn't work, also some unlocking sites themselves state that you need to roll back to 4.1.1
in order to input an unlock code.
Does anyone know for a fact that's actually possible to SIM Unlock a -stock- 4.1.2 t-mobile version using a code? (assuming
that t-mobile will give out the code when you're travelling overseas)

(btw, if the law actually only applies to 'subsidized' phones, then it would be perfect legal to unlock a phone purchased via a payment
plan from t-mobile, those phones are financed, but they are not subsidized at all, t-mobile may claim otherwise, but that doesn't mean
that they're right)

Update. ..
I have a 4.1.2 Tmobile Note 2. I called and within 24 hours, received my unblocking code. I inserted an AT&T SIM card and was able to successfully unblock my phone and I was able to make calls and access data with the att sim with no issues

 

[prepaidguy9081]

Update. ..
I have a 4.1.2 Tmobile Note 2. I called and received my unblocking code within 24 hours. I inserted an AT&T SIM card and was able to successfully unblock my phone and I was able to make calls and access data with the att sim with no issues

Ditto

Sent from my SGH-T889 using Tapatalk HD

 

[Bruce Finkelstein]

I have the same problem. I got the unlock code from T-Mobile, but it won't work. How do you flash the modem?