Verizon’s statement on the matter is that it “helps prevent theft and protect customers from fraud.” They believe that a device “locked” to a carrier would be a deterrent to thieves by being less attractive to them.

You may be wondering why these phone locks exist in the first place and you wouldn’t be the first. Why Are Phones Locked? Image by Mudassar Iqbal from Pixabay Unless there’s specific inclusion of an “unlocked phone” in your carrier’s contract or you bought the phone separately, most plan phones are delivered with a carrier lock. It also affects both prepaid and postpaid plans as well. This is regardless of whether you bought one from Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, or other carriers.

These are “locked” to the carrier you’d bought them from. Now, for an obvious question, what is a locked phone? Locked phones are the same as any other Android or iPhone phone with one exception.

What Networks Can Your Now Unlocked Phone Use?.

Lock-In periods for Older Phones and 3G World Devices.

Exception for Deployed Military Personnel.

If the device is deemed eligible after the two-day review period, you’ll then be able to pop out the old SIM and insert the new one. Follow the link in the email to confirm the request. Once you submit the request, you’ll get a confirmation email with an unlock request number. If you can’t get into your account for some reason, you can use the company’sĭevice unlock portal to verify the phone’s eligibility. To do that, log into your account, choose the device you want to unlock, select “Unlock phone or tablet to work with another wireless provider,” and follow the prompts. The first step is to submit a request to the carrier to find out whether it’s eligible to be unlocked. iPhones bought from the company will still be locked to AT&T’s network, so bringing it to another carrier isn’t as simple as popping out the SIM. Slightly more complicated than the other carriers. If you’re an AT&T customer, the process is

The unlocking process at AT&T is the most complicated of the four major carriers. If you want to move to a new network, simply cancel your service and start a new plan with the carrier of your choice. Whether you purchased your iPhone from an Apple Store or a Verizon shop, Big Red states that it does not lock any 4G LTE devices, so no code is needed to open up your iPhone for use with another carrier. Verizon’s unlocking policy is surprisingly consumer friendly.įriendliest unlocking policy for LTE phones. And you might need to factory reset your phone before the new network can be recognized, so make sure you’re backed up. Beyond that, the process varies slightly for each carrier: Verizon Stephen Lawson For T-Mobile it’s 40 days, Sprint 50 days, and AT&T is the longest at 60 days. Additionally, most carriers require accounts to have been active for a certain number of days before they will allow devices to be unlocked.

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