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jaegermaster 12-11-2010 6:32 PM

Buying a used cell phone
 
I have a few questions regarding buying a used cell phone. Right now my boss pays 100% of my cell phone bill. I am laid off but he is still paying it. When he laid me off he had AT&T turn off my data package.

My Blackberry is almost toast and I need to get a new phone. If I upgrade through AT&T I will get roped into having data which I don't need right now and chances are he will make me pay for my phone again.

My questions are:

Will any blackberry work if I use my sim card in it? Does it need to be an AT&T phone. If I did buy a used phone would I have to get a data package?

All I want is my phone to work and I am partial to the blackberry.

Thanks for any help.

jon4pres 12-11-2010 8:18 PM

The phone either needs to be from the same company or jailbroken.

If you buy used they will not make you have the data plan.

wake77 12-12-2010 5:55 AM

^Not necessarily. T-Mobile also uses Sim Cards, but you would not be able to use a Blackberry from Verizon or Sprint. As long as the phone is from AT&T or T-Mobile, you should be fine.

jaegermaster 12-12-2010 11:09 AM

Thanks, the next question is does anyone have one they want to get rid of? I Have a curve right now, but at long as it is full size I don't care which one I get. I do not want a pearl though.

Thanks.

jaegermaster 12-12-2010 7:24 PM

I swapped my sim card into my wife's T-Mobile Blackberry and it said "invalid sim card" Is there something I am supposed to do after swapping it? Maybe T-Mobile and AT&T aren't compatible?

Still looking for a used AT&T Blackberry.

magic 12-12-2010 8:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaegermaster (Post 1649817)
I swapped my sim card into my wife's T-Mobile Blackberry and it said "invalid sim card" Is there something I am supposed to do after swapping it? Maybe T-Mobile and AT&T aren't compatible?

Still looking for a used AT&T Blackberry.

Ya, typically phones are SIM locked to the original carrier. When you see a phone for sale that says unlocked, then that phone can accept a SIM from most any carrier.

TMO and ATnT both use the same technology, GSM. So devices can work on either network. In your case, your wife's Blackberry is SIM locked and rejecting the ATnT SIM. You would need to get her phone unlocked. You can do this via the carrier or sometimes on the open market.

Your phone will NOT work on Verizon as they use a different technology (CDMA) from TMO and ATnT (for that matter, most of the world is GSM).

I saw the Jailbroken comment too. That is a specific term to iPhones. You just need to unlock the phone you want and it will work with most any GSM carrier. You can have an unlocked iPhone that is not jailbroken.

jaegermaster 12-12-2010 9:03 PM

Thanks Sean, that clears up some of the confusion.

iridelow1998 12-14-2010 7:45 PM

Jae G, You can unlock a blackberry yourself and it will cost about $10 and take you about 2 minutes. It's really a piece of cake. As simple as following about 2-3 very easy steps and entering the unlock code. I've done several of them for friends and family. Let me know if I can give you advice or guide you in the right direction. As said above, Tmobile is the only major US carrier that is compatible with the AT&T network. Don't touch verizon or sprint, they definitely won't work as they operate on a CDMA network as opposed to the GSM that AT&T and Tmobile run on.

jaegermaster 12-15-2010 6:12 AM

Thanks Nick, I just may take you up on that once I find a phone. I am guessing a bunch will show up right after Christmas.

Thanks again everyone.


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