D is off contract with Sprint. Her new apartment is located in a dead zone for Sprint. She’d like to take her iPhone 5 over to ATT (good reception there). She has gotten the royal runaround from Sprint, and little help from ATT. Sprint gave her the unlock code but won’t tell her how to use it. ATT (went to more than one store) is clueless as well.
ATT would love a new customer I’m sure, but with strings attached–buy a new phone from us. Staying with Sprint makes no sense at all–poor reception. She’s taken very good care of her iPhone 5 and doesn’t want the bigger iPhone 6.
We kept our contract and extra month to get the unlock instructions and code from Sprint. My understanding is that even if it is unlocked, it may now allow the user the faster speeds and may not work for some providers. We have not tried using it as a phone since we discontinued with Sprint. We just use it as an “itouch” where we have wifi and bought a OnePlus One android phone that we use for our new carrier, TMobile.
Got to Apple to see if they could help. I did some research for you online. It doesn’t appear Sprint’s iphone would work with ATT network because of firmware.
Sprint phones can work on Verizon’s network, and even though Verizon doesn’t say you can bring your own phone, you can. They will not work with AT&T or T-mobile.
I tried doing this recently and the more I googled for answers the more disheartened I got that it would ever happen. I couldn’t find anyone who had success, like you, I had a “code” but couldn’t find any answers on what to do with it. I gave up (maybe too quickly? I wasn’t that motivated). If you manage to do it I’d love to hear about it.
Good grief, I spent some time looking too. I don’t belive they will actually do it for you. Yikes. It appears Sprint will unlock phones bought after Feb 15, 2015. The sim lock wiki article seems to be on target with info.
A couple folks have mentioned this already but this is key: the way US carriers are set up is that there are two basic technologies their phones run on. AT&T and T-Mobile both use GSM (which also is the same technology used else where in the world). The other major carrriers, ie Verizon, Sprint, are on a different system (I think it’s called CDMA). While it’s certtainly worthwhile to unlock the Sprint phone to be able to sell it to someone else, even if it’s unlocked I don’t believe it will work on the AT&T network.
I’m in the process of helping S unlock his AT&T iphone so he can use international SIM cards on his upcoming world tour and unfortunately have been reading WAY too much about this subject late Good Luck!
If the Sprint network is no good where your kid is, chances are the Verizon network isn’t good either. The current phone should be roaming on Verizon if that is available.
Depending on the 3G/4G/whatever service, it is possible that her Sprint phone might work with one of the other carriers for those services. She has to check the exact bandwidths that it operates on, and the bandwidths that those carriers make available. This could give her a work-around until she figures out a new plan of action.
Good Luck!