Sim cards and mobile phones

[ceresa 3]

Hi All

I have a question. My husband and I are with Cingular, but his phone has broken, Cingular wont upgrade it because it just ran out of warranty, so we took it to Radioshack (a motorola repair center) and they said it was the flex cable but it would cost $75 to fix because the phone is out of warranty. So we called Motorola and they said it was actually a 15 month warranty so they could fix it for free, so we posted it to Motorola but they posted it back saying it was liquid damage and so couldnt be fixed.... grrr, its never been near water. (and why is radioshack saying its a "flex cable" and motorola saying its liquid damage!)

Anyway we thought it would be cheaper to just go buy a cheap pay-as-you-go phone from Walmart or something, ..... so heres the question. Will his Cingular SIM work in any pay-as-you-go phone, or does it have to be a Cingular pay-as-you-go phone? Just wondering cus theres some cheap ones for $30 with Virgin, but i dont know if the phones are locked?

[Steph1010 1]

I dont think so......it needs to be a cingular phone...it can be someone elses used phone but it much be from cingular....

[CarolineM 0]

If you change plans your SIM won't work. So if you don't want cingular anymore, and want Virgin, or whatever, you can't use your sim. That would only work if you had a phone and wanted to keep cingular service.

How long have you been Cingular customers? After w hile you are eligible for upgrades....

It may be cheaper and/or easier to just get a new phone. After my latest phone fiasco - i'm ALWAYS getting insurance on my phone

[Fandango 1,439]

Hi All

I have a question. My husband and I are with Cingular, but his phone has broken, Cingular wont upgrade it because it just ran out of warranty, so we took it to Radioshack (a motorola repair center) and they said it was the flex cable but it would cost $75 to fix because the phone is out of warranty. So we called Motorola and they said it was actually a 15 month warranty so they could fix it for free, so we posted it to Motorola but they posted it back saying it was liquid damage and so couldnt be fixed.... grrr, its never been near water. (and why is radioshack saying its a "flex cable" and motorola saying its liquid damage!)

Anyway we thought it would be cheaper to just go buy a cheap pay-as-you-go phone from Walmart or something, ..... so heres the question. Will his Cingular SIM work in any pay-as-you-go phone, or does it have to be a Cingular pay-as-you-go phone? Just wondering cus theres some cheap ones for $30 with Virgin, but i dont know if the phones are locked?

If it just ran out of warranty, I'm guessing that you've had it about a year? Call cingular & ask if you qualify yet for another promotion...problem is you'll have to sign up for another 1-2 year contract.

Or try ebay maybe?

[rclouse 0]

A guy here at work is with Cingular and he dropped his phone in the drink. He got a Cingular pay-as-you-go phone & replaced it with the SIM from his waterphone and it's working just fine. YMMV.

[Cristy 4]

I used to work for AT&T wireless. Those warranties are so picky they are almost useless. The sim card will only work in their phone, that is how they keep you.

If you are in contract and they won't give you a new phone or a deal on one then you have the early termination fee. Usually it is a 2 or 3 yr contract for a new phone. So many tricks! lol

If you don't want to use them and don't want to pay the fee the best advice is to move to the lowest cost plan and ride it out. Not sure where you are in contract but it is sometimes cheaper to do it like that.

[Chicky 0]

I also work for a wireless company, most companies SIM lock their SIM cards and they will only unlock with a phone from their company. I dont believe Virgin mobile phones are GSM but are like CDMA. They have some of the functionality of GSM but are digitalized like TDMA phones.

[gwenneh 7]

Whaaaaat?

Russ and I have Cingular and we've been able to just pop our sim cards in and out of any phone, the only one we have that the cards didn't work in was a phone which wasn't tri-band.

[kc456 0]

I think you're behind times guys. Cingular is GSM so you should be able to use the SIM card in any GSM phone. I have T-mobile and I just brought in my own smart phone and got the card (saving the free phone that came with the plan for when I lose/break/don't want to use the smart phone). Regarding the plan, I don't know. You may need to continue with your plan unless you want to cancel it.

[Cristy 4]

They may have changed it. When I was there their sim cards could not be transferred to another phone. That is the way they keep you buying new phones.

[kygeographer 0]

Generally, as long as the phone you're putting the SIM card in is unlocked, you can pretty much use any phone. Check ebay for "unlocked gsm" phone. Just make sure it's one that's guaranteed to work in the US. That's what I did when I wanted a new phone, but didn't want to sign a new contract.

[cbd2cai 0]

I have a variation on this question . . . i want to take the spare phone I have from T-Mobile (I upgraded after 1 year and put the old sim in the new phone) and get a sim card for vodaphone or similar when i am overseas. Sure the phone works in other countries, but those international charges are killers!!! But I guess the problem is always that the phone is locked?

[kygeographer 0]

I have a variation on this question . . . i want to take the spare phone I have from T-Mobile (I upgraded after 1 year and put the old sim in the new phone) and get a sim card for vodaphone or similar when i am overseas. Sure the phone works in other countries, but those international charges are killers!!! But I guess the problem is always that the phone is locked?

From what I've heard, T Mobile's pretty good about unlocking phones. Call the customer service folks and tell them you're traveling overseas, and you'd like it unlocked.

Search this site http://www.howardforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=52 ... I've seen a few posts in the past on unlocking a T-Mobile phone. Shouldn't be a problem if you've had your contract for awhile. Either way, you can always buy an unlocked phone on Ebay. If money's not too big an issue, the Ericsson T39 works in pretty much all countries I've looked into. Which countries are you planning on using your phone in?

EDIT: I just looked at your profile, and Egypt, which I'm assuming is where you'll want to use your phone, operates on the 900 band. As long as you have a phone that operates on that band, you shouldn't have a problem. Which phone are you wanting to use? It might work without you having to buy a new phone.

Edited February 18, 2006 by kygeographer

[cbd2cai 0]

From what I've heard, T Mobile's pretty good about unlocking phones. Call the customer service folks and tell them you're traveling overseas, and you'd like it unlocked.

EDIT: I just looked at your profile, and Egypt, which I'm assuming is where you'll want to use your phone, operates on the 900 band. As long as you have a phone that operates on that band, you shouldn't have a problem. Which phone are you wanting to use? It might work without you having to buy a new phone.

I have a Samsung (both the old and the new) . . . it worked fine in Egypt last time I was there but I was using the international option for t-mobile. I couldn't really get incoming calls within Egypt . . . but somehow people managed to get through from the States. I could call out and send/recv txt msgs. The reason that I was looking at getting a sim card in Egypt is so I can easily call out or receive (without paying a king's ransom. I don't really want to buy another phone . . . how many mobile phones have i had in the past few years??? LOL!

Oh, I guess I only want to unlock the phone I am not using anymore.

Edited February 18, 2006 by cbarrosmostafa

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Sim cards will work in any 'unlocked' phone. You can have most phones unlocked. Look on e-bay for people to unlock your phone.

Pay-as-you go phones are cheap to buy but expensive to own.