Unlocked Cell Phones: What Does It Mean To Be Unlocked?

Unlocked Cell Phones What Does It Mean To Be Unlocked

This is a simple guide that explains what it means if your cell phone is unlocked and, how you can tell if it is, as well as some suggestions on how to get your phone unlocked. Simply put, if your cell phone is unlocked it can be used with more than one wireless carrier like T Mobile and Cingular. For a more detailed explanation read on. If you find this guide helpful, please help others find it by clicking the "Yes" in the blue title bar below.

I will start with what is means to be locked. Many years ago, the wireless carriers such as AT&T and others started a marketing strategy of paying for some of or all of the cost of a new cell phone if the customer would commit to a one or two year contract to use their wireless service. The wireless carriers did not want to pay for the phone and later have it used with another carrier, so they got the cell phone manufactures to design the phone to be locked to just their service. For example, if AT&T paid for the phone, AT&T would lock it so that it could only be used on AT&T and not T Mobile. This lock is called by several names including "Sub Lock" or "SPC Lock" or "Sim Lock".

Now that you know why the cell phones are locked, I will discuss how to tell if your phone is locked or unlocked. First, you must determine if your phone is a GSM phone or a CDMA phone. This is easy to tell, if the phone uses a sim card (a small piece of plastic that you put in the phone, see picture below), it is GSM, if it doesn't, it is CDMA. The US carriers that are GSM are Cingular and T Mobile. The CDMA carriers are Verizon, US Cellular, Alltel, Qwest... ...read the full guide >>>