[cmw0021]

Hello, a few days ago I was told you are able to buy a phone for example from T-Moblie and use THAT PHONE for Verizons service. Is this true? Able to purchase a phone from a provider and use that phone with another service. Please inform me with the correct information. Thanks.

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› See More: Question with phones and providers

[BlkBear]

Howdy Cmw,

Normally if both cellular providers were GSM and the phone was able to work on either services frequencies (for USA 850 and 1900), so it could work on the other service (as long as the phone was unlocked so that it could be used on any GSM network).

But in this case Verzion is not a GSM cellular provider, but rather CDMA and the two services are not compatible. So any phone you buy that was labled to work with T-Moble, will not work with Verizon.

[skier8848]

CMW is correct.

Networks
CDMA - Verizon, Sprint

GSM - T-Mobile, Cingular

iDEN- Nextel

TDMA - old Cingular

those are the basic networks and carriers that operate on them. phone can only operate on the network they are on. in order to use the same network with a differnt carrier your phone must be unlocked.

Carriers lock phones to prevent you from switching networks. often it is rather expensive to get phones unlocked.

[roberts1953]

CMW is only partially correct. You can use different providers with the same technology, but not a tmobile phone on Verizon. Typically, it is easy to unlock and reconfigure a GSM phone, so tmobile phones will work on cingular network and visa versa. This is true of any GSM phone/network with the same frequency operability. In general CDMA phones wont work for other providers. For example verizon has a list of Verizon phone ESNs. Even if you unlock your sprint or us cellular phone verizon wont activate it because the esn isn't on their list. There are some prepaid Verizon resellers that will activate a non-verizon unlocked CDMA phone, however.