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i jailbroke my phone without a sim installed. I did not hackivate my tmobile sim. I activated the tmobile sim with a prepaid tmobile phone. I read somewhere that AT&T locks there sim to the phone it was activated in for 180 days is this true? and is this why my phone won't recognize the sim?
You do not activate a sim card, you activate or hacktivate the phone. The
ONLY way to get an iPhone to turn on after jailbreak without putting an official carrier sim into it is thru hacktivation.
Since you claimed the T-mobile sim worked in the phone and the AT&T sim does not, that means the phone (not the sim) was hacktivated. Otherwise the un-official sim would never have worked in the phone (and yes, hacktivation is different from unlocking). Hacktivation prevents an official carrier sim from working in an iPhone. Unlocking does not, however unlocking won't be required (obviously) with the AT&T sim
My advice still stands, you will need to restore in order to use the AT&T sim, then you can re-JB if you wish to get the bells & whistles.