I don't know about you guys but I always ask a customer for their number if looking to purchase outright. If they say they aren't a customer and say they just want to buy a phone that I am not allowed to sell it without a contract(not that thats true). But, I make no money and neither does the company by selling a phone for full price to a noncustomer. Isn't that what Ebay's for?

Wrong. Only the v.400 is unlocked. All of the others are locked, expect for some of the TREO 600's. If a phone is in a Carrier branded box, you can bet it is locked. If it is in a Vendor's box with no Carrier markings it is usually unlocked. All of the new ATTWS phones are coming in generic boxes, but they do say, sold for use exclusively on the ATTWs network in small print. There are tons of sites that will sell unlocked phones. Nokia has a link on their site where you can have them send the setting for a particlur carrier right to the phone. (to make mMode or Internet express work)

Actually YOU'RE wrong. Cingular does sell all world band phones unlocked. Not unbranded, but unlocked. It'll still have our software and markings, but if you pop a T-mobile SIM in it it'll still work. We do this, among other reasons, so our customers can avoid expensive roaming fees when overseas by purchasing a prepaid SIM and using it in our phone.

So the answer to the question is YES Timmy, there IS a Santa Claus, the Toothfairy DOES exist and we DO sell our world phones unlocked!!

Yep, disturbed is right. World phones come unlocked. I've tried it on the v400 and v600 and seen it on others. *applauds disturbed1's smackdown of the smackdown*

😎 *takes a bow* Thank you! Thank you! I'll be here all week!!! Try the Veal!! 🤣

I don't know about you guys, but I was buisier than a cat covering up **** today! I can thank POS being down for most of yesterday for that.

None the less, Cingular does sell unlocked phones branded with the Cingular logo.

All current Motorola's are unlocked, as mentioned. V180, 220, 400 and the V600.

Yes the Treo is also unlocked, and as soon as we get the new Blackberry 7290 which is a world phone, I would venture that it too is unlocked.

Funny situation yesterday...I activated a woman who wanted the promo $39.99 plan for 1000 minutes. She wanted the unlimited M2M for $9.99. Since POS was doen and I had to call it in, the rep noted that the M2M was added at no extra charge?!? What gives? I checked it in POS and it was a listed ...
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the m2m is not free when on the 39.99 1000r/promo, must be added at 9.99 charge

FREAKIN A!!!! I wish I'd been busy today, I got a whoping 2 activations today like 20 min. before closing. The rest of the day I was just sittin on my ass tryin to think up ways to move some inventory. I figure MAYBE if I can get some of the crap in our stock room out they might actually stock me with some stuff worth selling. The closest thing I've got to decent is the V220 and the LG C1300. Everything else is too crappy to mention.

GOD CAN I GET SOME HIGH END PHONES?!?!?!?

I had about a four hour slam with at least two customers waiting at all times. I don't know what was going on yesterday. That plan they were activated to must be the one in telligence that we're not supposed to offer. My area rep said there was one, but it can only be put on by CS. They're lucky to be on it =o)

I accept the smackdown, and humbly have learned something new. Thanks, walks off, with head hung in shame. I just posted a new thread with a ? Would it be too much to ask for help

While your taking a bow 😁 tell me if I can use a GSM SIM card now that I have moved to Australia, in my Ericsson T28 World phone which was previously attached to Cingular.

Thanks

sure!

I don't see why you wouldn't be able to. Unless of course it was bought locked prior to the adoption of our policy of selling unlocked world phones. Go ahead and purchase a SIM from a provider in your area and pop it in there in the store, if it doesn't work then they'll be there to see it and advise.

😎

TRY THE VEAL!!!!

I tried a GSM SIM. It says "Insert correct card". I guess this phone doesn't work with GSM...

When I put in other SIMs, it says I need an unlock code. If I get into the 'Personalize' menu, I get a closed lock on 'Network'. I assume that means I bought it before the phones were sold unlocked.

Thanks

sounds that way....if you're out of contract with us, give Cingular a call and request the unlock code. If you've completed your contract or paid the fee, it's their job to give it to you. If the rep won't do it, POLITELY ask for a supervisor and they should help you unlock the phone.

That's a new one. Never heard of any carrier giveing out unlock codes.

you complete your contract and it's YOUR phone. They have no more right to it. If you own they can't keep it locked. I've heard of it being done.

I know there is a class action about that issue going on right now against GSM wireless providers. There was on with TDMA phones but that got turned down and there is now one with GSM phones especialy with the SIM cards but i don't think it's been decieded. I guess it's just up to the carriers. I didn't think anyone gave them to you.

I've heard of it happening before. I don't understand why they wouldn't. It's not like they own the phone anymore, you wouldn't buy a car, make payments for two years and then give them back the keys when you finally owned it. It's similar with phones. You've paid off the subsidy, in fact they've made more off of you than the phone was worth in most cases. Now they should unlock it so you can take YOUR phone anywhere you want. Come to think of it they should re-flash it for you so that their software isn't on it if that's a concern for them. As far as SIM cards....that's got the company name and brand on it, at least it does at Cingular, so that's company prop.

No i mean with TDMA most companys will not activate another companys phone because it must be manually programed and it's near imposible to know the programing steps for every single phone so they just won't do it and that's one reason the class action for TDMA got denied. But with SIM cards they don't have that problem so who knows what will happen to this class action. Maybe it will go through and carriers will have to unlock them. Of course the other question is will CDMA have to unlock them? Is it fair not to have CDMA have to unlock but GSM...dunno...Guess that's why we have courts.

now I understand that with activating. And if it's your company's policy not to activate a phone off the streets that's one thing. But as far as unlocking goes. It's like I said before they no longer own the phone. Now if they wanna avoid this, then they can take the phone back at the end of contract and leave the customer without if they decide not to renew. I mean if they upgrade that old phone isn't gonna do em any good anyway (unless they're GSM and wanna use it as a back up) so why not turn it in? But of course no company wants an overstock of old phones they can't or don't sell anymore, so unlock em and let em try to find a carrier to activate it if that's what they wanna do. Otherwise it's just a paperweight.

This is one rea...
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If all GSM phones are ever legally required to be unlocked, it will only confuse the average customer and drive up the cost of the phones. I already have enough trouble explaining to a customer who moves to texas from california why they have to get a new phone to get a local number. T-mobile phones can become unlocked, and still remain useless to most other carriers that don't support 1900 in their area. You can also look at the outright cost of unlocked phones from the manufacturers websites and compare those to the outright cost from service providers. That difference would be gone. Then it brings up the issue about who has to service a phone which is still under warranty but from a different carrier. In doing this, you might see ph...
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Why does a customer have to get a new phone? What does the phone have to do with their number? At worse they would need a new SIM card but they shouldn't need a new phone. GSM phones don't even have the number on the phone. The phone has to go check with the SIM card before it knows it's own number.

Even though T-mobile, Cingular, and ATTWS all use GSM, we don't all use the same frequencies. T-mobile uses only 1900 mhz. Cingular uses 850 and 1900, and if I'm not mistaken ATTWS does too. In some areas Cingular may use both frequencies, in others only one or the other. I know it Texas, we use only 850mhz. For those customers with phones that only have 900 mhz enabled, they would roam off other networks. Also, SIM cards have the frequencies programmed on them. A California based SIM card (beginning 893) does not function even in a dual band phone. I Texas based SIM card (beginning 890) will not function in a 1900 mhz phone. I know this because I did it yesterday with both types of cards and both types of phones with a customer who...
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Wow. That's convoluted. At AWS we got rid off all the phones that just work on 850 and now all phones work on both. We even replaced the ones that were 850 only with ones that do both. With our phones all phones work in all areas (as lon as they are in the US of course).

VOX, a small correction, if I might. ATTWS got rid of the GSM phones that only did 1900 not 850, never had any of those. We owned a lot more spectrum at 850 going back to the days of analog and TDMA. ATTWS then did an "overlay" at 850 adding gsm to those sites, creating the need for the dual band gsm phones 850/1900. NYC/NJ is an example, we were originally at 850 here. Bought more spectrum at 1900. Used that for TDMA, when Gsm launched here in 2002, it was only on the 1900 towers. They then went back and added gsm to all of the 850 sites. the network improvement project was called project liberty. Look up a phone such as the nokia 7210, which attws carried for a short while, it has 1900 for the us and the other 2 for overseas but not...
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My bad. Your right. It was 1900. They even recalled the SE T68 and gave everyone T226's...Weither it was an upgrade or not i dunno 😛

T68 had Bluetooth/mono ringtones/1900Mhz. T226 had no BT/polyphonic ringtones/850Mhz/1900Mhz. So if you had a BT headset, it was a downgrade

Ralph,

What market to do you work in? I know Macintosh 16X covers Bryan/College Station (South Texas), and my self in the Dallas market. Just showing that Texas love!!

Will

DFW myself too, in the south area. I usually get bumped around to several stores though... worked in Hurst, three stores in Arlington, and Corsicana, but I'm usually in South Fort Worth.

Contract was over about 3 years ago. Is there a number I can call from outside of the US. Unfortunately, I can't call 800 numbers from Australia...


Thanks for your help. 🙂

I'll look into that. The only numbers I have off the top are 800 numbers. Hopefully I'll find something. If not maybe someone else can help ya out here.


Any takers?

If not, I'm sure I could figure something out.