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Verizon-Branded iPhone 5 Ships Unlocked, Works With Other Networks
An anonymous reader writes with this news from Geek.com: "If you're planning to get a new Verizon iPhone 5, there might be a little bonus feature included that neither Apple nor Verizon are keen to admit. As units have started making it out of the stores, it appears that the Verizon version of the device is fully unlocked out of the box and able to connect to any GSM network. Verizon support is apparently confirming to customers that the device is unlocked. At the very least, this doesn't appear to be a mistake. It likely has to do with the way the iPhone's radios are designed along with the implementation of LTE on Verizon. This might make the device a little more palatable to those on the fence about upgrading, especially for anyone that travels."
I'll just point out that T-Mobile will sell you a "value plan" for like half the price of AT&T.
But here in the US it makes little difference. What are you going to do?
Sign up for AT&T?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It's not just SlashDot. Pretty much all media outlets do a huge amount of what boils down to free Apple advertising.
the real question is that if i can go to a verizon store and buy one without having an account and without contract for people like me that don't live in the US but sometimes visits.
i know that you eventually will be able to buy it online and unlocked at the apple store, but for example in Venezuela you can't spend more than 400$ over the internet in a year.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
TFA doesn't make sense. "Able to connect to any GSM network...." No kidding. That's what my unlocked gen 1 phone does. Connect and not be 'roaming' status - that's different.
They gloss over the real point, which is dropping a new SIM into it while traveling so you are always local.
You can thank Google for pushing for Open Access rules during bidding for the spectrum:
"(e) Handset locking prohibited. No licensee may disable features on handsets it provides to customers, to the extent such features are compliant with the licensee's standards pursuant to paragraph (b)of this section, nor configure handsets it provides to prohibit use of such handsets on other providers' networks." [bold mine]
Verizon recently got smacked down according to these rules and had to permit tethering without a fee.
Elsewhere?
What, New Mexico or someplace foreign like that?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
you're planning to get a new Verizon iPhone
No I'm not.
Even the quality of the copy-and-pastes is declining around here.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Most people, U.S. or not, spend most of their time not travelling.
The important difference between U.S. and Europe is that all the networks and phones use GSM. That lowers costs and promotes competition — hence the unlocked phones. When you can move your phone to any network, there's a big market for unlocked ones. With less competition here, carriers can get away with bundling and long-term contracts, which means locked-in phones.
Speaking of which Verizon's network is not GSM. So are these iPhones dual-network or what?
Oh please. I'm an Android user, and I'm not noticing a dearth of Android articles. In any case, this is newsworthy.
They get payed. Almost all of them.
No, they don't, at least not in most European countries, which is why there are lots of sites that offer 'unlocking' services for specific operators. These include the UK, Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, etc.
You can "travel" quite a bit in the US and never leave the US, whereas a similar distance in Europe might consist of crossing the borders of many different countries. If every US state had a different cell company things might be different, but as it stands now you can go coast to coast with the same provider (including Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico).
this is my sig
From a technical perspective, would this mean that the iPhone 5 on Sprint would be unlocked too? It would be nice.
I'm sorry your delicate sensibilities were offended by an article about the new iPhone on a tech site. My understanding is there are mechanisms available to filter out the news you are incapable of handling.
This being Slashdot, would it not make sense for there to be more Android articles? Is there just too much Apple astroturfing going on Slashdot or is it just me?
Yeah, you're right. I guess on the day after a brand-new iPhone model launches, it would simply be inconceivable to see an Apple article here...
You might want to revise the "everywhere", because phones are certainly sold locked here in the UK.
Almost all EU phones with an associated contract/airtime are locked to a network - however there are inter carrier agreements
no the do not just use gsm
The SGS III was bootlocked, the Galaxy Nexus was essentially neutered, but Verizon allows the iPhone to be used on other carriers?
I assume Apple greased a few palms...
Well it's GSM/UMTS, and yes, European do have contracts and SIM/NET LOCKs, but one can usually remove the locks easily enough.
Enough people travel, and in Europe, if you want to avoid painful roaming costs, that means swapping the SIM to something prepaid and local.
Even if the borders you cross are usually only delimited with a road sign. Often included is also a low speed limit for a couple of hundreds of meters. The only "Europeans" that are used to border controls as a way of life seems to be Brits nowadays.
More at the link:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/09/iphone5-lte-model/
Is the Wired story incorrect? Is there more to this? Or is "able to connect to any GSM network" totally bogus?
More details here, including this blurb from Verizon:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/09/want-global-lte-roaming-on-iphone-5-dont-buy-it-from-att/
Perhaps this should read "able to connect to any LTE network that runs on compatible frequencies"?
Well, experience in Austria shows that atypical phones even on a contract are not locked. E.g. data centric phones before the iPhone where heavy duty geek stuff, hence sold in small numbers, hence even on contract the carries didn't bother to produce a locked batch.
Apple is a media darling and gets attention everywhere.
Even Android Central and DroidLife covered the iPhone 5 launch. Why? Guaranteed views. Even those who are against coverage on what is clearly not an Apple-centric site will click and comment on their coverage. You fell right into the trap.
Trolling is a business tactic. Your only weapon against it is apathy.
Why would Verizon care? The V phone won't work on almost any other network at LTE speeds, because the antenna/firmware hasn't been tuned to allow it to work on ATT bands. Your minimum contractual commitment is 24 months at $50+/mo, even for high end corporate clients, so $200+1200>>sales price, and if you go anywhere else with the phone you're not using their network so it's like free money.
FWIW, this is identical to the way Verizon iPads are provisioned. I can drop in a Verizon SIM or an AT&T SIM and it works with both carriers (though on the 3G/GSM network for AT&T). It's why I bought the Verizon iPad to begin with.
Of course, you'll have to go cut down a SIM to fit in the !@#@#^ microsim slot if you want to switch.
Odd bit of trivia: did you know that really big corporate clients get unlimited data on the iPhone (well, probably any phone) for $20/mo? Strange but true.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Hey Rip Van Winkle, this is the internet. It's amazing. We talk about Apple a lot. We've also got books...on tape.
The bastards will NOT unlock any of the iPhone4S phones. Verizon is still scumbags because of this.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I read recently that the phones as shipped can choose a network, but can't be changed ofter. This is hardly unlocked. It is like the DVD drives that ship to play in any region, but once one is selected it is locked. It was also my understanding that the ATT phone would work with more international locations. I can't find the article right now, so I don't know if i recalling correctly.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The iPhone 5 only has one antenna so it can't do simultaneous voice and data over cellular on Verizon or Sprint, only AT&T.'
Every LTE Android phone on Verizon has the two antennas needed to do this.
paid?
A carrier would have little reason for locking a phone which was under contract. Why would they care? - they get paid whether it's actually used on their network or not. It would be pay-as-you-go phones which they'd want to restrict, assuming they're sold at subsidized prices.
Or do Euro carriers not subsidize phones and have contract early termination fees, as in the US? (in which case there would be no reason to lock them at all)
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
If you're that bothered about updates for android, you can download and install it manually its no more fuss than getting the update when the manufacturers push it out the door. Besides, unless there is some game changing new feature you can't live without on the new version what's the point in updating anyway? The fool is the person who bases his choice of phone on bullshit.
And so they are in Canada, too. Maybe "everywhere" really means "Europe"?
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
This being Slashdot, would it not make sense for there to be more Android articles? Is there just too much Apple astroturfing going on Slashdot or is it just me?
I was just thinking that there is a slightly less iPhone astroturfing on Slashdot compared to the iPhone launch in previous years. In the past you would get 3 or 4 stories in a row on the iPhone here.
So IMHO things are improving.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
ipad?
I'm pretty sure, the last time I looked, the UK was still considered part of Europe ;)
Realistically, it never made much sense to lock the phones anyway...the customer is already contractually obligated to pay you for service over a long enough period to repay the cost of the phone, or pay an early termination fee that, again, covers the cost of the phone. Locking them to prevent carrier changes was unnecessary.
"neither Apple nor Verizon are keen to admit" "Verizon support is apparently confirming to customers that the device is unlocked"
Fuck, why bother?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Not true. There are other places where they ship locked, if you buy them on contract. Canada, for example.
If you buy a phone with a subscription/contract, the yes, but if you buy one without a subscription/contract it's typically unlocked. At least that's the case in Denmark, where I've never had any problems buying an unlocked phone.
iPaid.
Also Spain. I know a guy who has a locked Samsung Galaxy S II from Orange España.
That's a mostly accurate summary of the outwardly visible effects a nontechnical end user who only wants to "surf and talk" might see, but it doesn't quite describe the actual problem. If you know exactly what's going on behind the scenes, there ARE ways to do simultaneous voice + data on Sprint (though most of them require spending more money for thirdparty services and doing an end-run around Sprint itself).
Let's start with voice calls. If you want to terminate a voice call through Sprint, there's exactly one way it can happen: via circuit-switched CDMA. The call travels between Sprint and whomever is at the other end of the call over the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Between Sprint's switching center and the phone, the call is transported via CDMA2000 voice.
No Sprint phone I'm aware of can simultaneously handle an active CDMA voice call and IP data using either EVDO or 1xRTT. It's physically impossible due to the way both are implemented on Sprint's phones. HOWEVER, in most of Sprint's recent phones, there's no hardware reason why you can't have an active voice call AND use data via Wimax, LTE, and/or wifi. Some Sprint phones have shipped with firmware that disabled data use during voice calls, but that was mainly due to tech support and demographics. Basically, they didn't feel like dealing with less-technical users who couldn't be assumed to understand the difference between the different data modes, be aware of their connectivity from minute-to-minute, and actively manage their data connection mode in order to do both at once.
That said, there's nothing (besides battery life and added subscription cost) to stop you from acquiring VoIP service from someone besides Sprint, running a SIP client on your phone, and making simultaneous VoIP calls while using any working data mode, including EVDO and (maybe, bandwidth permitting) 1xRTT. You can even use call forwarding to forward your incoming Sprint calls to the VoIP number. The downside is that your phone will drain the battery a LOT faster, because you'll have to actively poll for incoming calls (normal incoming calls are handled by having the phone poll Sprint's towers via the same mechanism used for text messages; with VoIP, the phone is polling twice as much, and has to maintain an active data connection to do it). One compromise is to make your outgoing calls via VoIP, but let your incoming calls continue to come in through Sprint (losing EVDO/1xRTT data connectivity when it happens).
So... you might be wondering... if end users can get simultaneous voice+data, even over CDMA data modes, by using VoIP service acquired independently of Sprint... why can't Sprint itself do it? Basically, their switching equipment can't handle it. Nothing that couldn't mostly be hacked around, but it would have been expensive, likely to cause problems (witness the thrashing many wimax Sprint phones do when they can't make up their mind between EVDO and wimax, and just keep breaking the data connection and thrashing wildly between the two), and would have still left Sprint with compromises compared to HSPA+.
For what it's worth, these problems are nothing new... GSM networks went through the exact same hardware problem 10 years ago when they transitioned from TDMA-based GSM/GPRS/EDGE to WCDMA-based UMTS/HS(D|U)PA(+). The main difference is that European phone companies actually WERE able to buy off the shelf switching equipment to deal with it, whereas Sprint would have had to cobble its own half-baked solution in-house. Qualcomm WAS actually working on SVDO to replace EVDO (doing more or less the same thing as HSPA+), but most CDMA carriers in other countries decided to skip EVDO and just transition to UMTS/HS(D|U)PA(+) instead. Sprint and Verizon couldn't do that, because they didn't have the pair of 10MHz uplink and downlink channels in all of their markets.
Sprint AND Verizon together would have been enough to motivate Qualcomm to finish development of SVDO, but Verizon hoped to strike a deathblow against Sprint by formally aband
I'm pretty sure, the last time I looked, the UK was still considered part of Europe ;)
Not by the French. ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Of course, which makes it even funnier when I catch all my British friends over here saying "I'm traveling to Europe for my holidays". They don't even notice until some American expat like myself points this out...
Most people, U.S. or not, spend most of their time not travelling.
The important difference between U.S. and Europe is that all the networks and phones use GSM. That lowers costs and promotes competition — hence the unlocked phones. When you can move your phone to any network, there's a big market for unlocked ones. With less competition here, carriers can get away with bundling and long-term contracts, which means locked-in phones.
Speaking of which Verizon's network is not GSM. So are these iPhones dual-network or what?
You didn't even read the summary, apparently.
TFS:
As units have started making it out of the stores, it appears that the Verizon version of the device is fully unlocked out of the box and able to connect to any GSM network.
What about T-mobile? Or any smaller carriers that use any GSM carriers networks?
This might make the device a little more palatable to those on the fence about upgrading
There's no way in hell I'd consider an iPhone an "upgrade."
I did read that. You didn't read my question.
Speaking of which Verizon's network is not GSM. So are these iPhones dual-network or what?
Yes:
http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html
They just don't work on all LTE bands.
http://unlockbootloader.sonymobile.com/
Feel free to download Jellybean roms from XDA.
What will they think of next?
I still don't want one.
So these are verision phones that are able to connect to any GSM network. So through the magic of logic, they are able to connect over verison's cdma and any GSM network. Doesn't that answer your question if they are dual network? Or was there a hidden question invisble to human eyes?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
GSM networks went through the exact same hardware problem 10 years ago when they transitioned from TDMA-based GSM/GPRS/EDGE to WCDMA-based UMTS/HS(D|U)PA(+).
Hmm
My understanding was that UMTS has mostly the same protocol stack as GSM (with a new physical layer) so from the networks point of view there isn't much difference between a phone moving between 2G and 3G than there is with a phone moving between cells. Is that understanding wrong?
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
And through the further magic of logic, it's a little strange for a company that doesn't use GSM to be selling phones that do. Hence my question and your rather stupid answer.
In Europe it is common for people to get contracts to just subsidise the phone, but not the data and calls. You often hear people saying "I've bought my high-end phone for 50 Euros", but then pay 20 Euros per month on 24 hour contract, and 40 cents/minute and 20c/SMS. So it is not like in the US that you only get a full package. You can also get full packages in Europe, but once again this is not the rule.
A more economical approach at the moment, at least in Germany, is to buy your own phone at full price and use pre-paid. It is funny, but pre-paid is way cheaper than the contracts and you are not tight to a carrier for two years. This is for me crucial because ALL carriers claim that you can't use your phone for VoIP, and sometimes even for IM. None of them block them that I know (I think the European Laws would hunt them), but I don't wanna have my Whatsapp block one day and be stucked with 12 more months to go.
You can also get pretty good deals for full packages through your employer. If you can live with 24 month contracts, these are sometimes better then pre-paid+full priced phone deals.
Maybe because LTE is based on GSM/UTMS?
One of the worlds newest phones uses *GSM*??
While we sufficiently technically advanced to not require hill beacons for communication are in the middle of deploying 4G...
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I'm not sure if you're from Europe yourself, or if you are, which country you're from. But there are at least a few countries in EU where locking a phone is prohibited by law and it may actually be an EU directive that prevents that. So in practice, I don't think I've heard of a locked phone now for quite a while.
On the second point, while roaming charges WERE in some cases prohibitively expensive, things are much better now and will continue to improve. Since 2007 there is regulation in effect that forces all mobile providers within EU and EEC countries to have fixed maximum roaming charges. And you know what? Prices are going down every year! /highest/ prices (without VAT) for roaming within EU (if you have a contract in any other EU country) are as follows:
Currently
- Making a call EUR 0,29/min (EUR 0,19/min in 2014)
- Receiving a call EUR 0,08/min (EUR 0,05/min in 2014)
- Sending a text message EUR 0,09/min (EUR 0,06/min in 2014)
- Receiving a text message - free of charge
Source Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_on_roaming_charges_in_the_European_Union#Prices
So I don't think that the inconvenience of having to switch SIMs and with that phone numbers is a realistic thing anymore. Especially if you travel on business and even if you travel privately and exercise a bit of care.
That's why they don't have a second thought about breaking their phones in half after every fresh batch of "blue sky".
And there are anonymous sim cards in austria, to order all your tinfoil from ;.)
You're question didn't make any sense at all. It obviously supports both, and verizion has sold phones for both GSM and CDMA for a long time now. So It wasn't clear what on earth you were confused or excited about.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
You're question didn't make any sense at all.
And yet other people understood it clearly. Please stop trying to prove whatever it is you're trying to prove.
No, everyone else replied in the same way: TFS explained it pretty well. The only people who understood/understand your question are you and maybe other people who didn't respond.
I'm only replying as much because its just bizarre. I still have no idea what you question really was. my best guess is that it was a rhetorical exclamation of surprise after learning that verizon makes cdma/gsm phones, rather than an actual question.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.