Cricket and C Spire to Offer iPhone 5 Beginning September 28 [Updated]

steve2112 · Sep 14, 2012

class77 said:
Steve, do you know anything about CSpire throttling their unlimited video streaming service? I read some complaints about on their site and I don't want to walk into that kind of drama. I'll pay for what I'll use, no problem, but don't tell me it's unlimited and then throttle it.

Aside from the lack of phones, this is the other thing that ticked me off with them. When they did the name change, they also changed their plans. It used to be unlimited data, period. Now, they advertise these cheap plans with "unlimited data", but there's a catch: they don't include streaming media. They do offer unlimited data plans with unlimited streaming, but of course, they cost more. It was their attempt to push more expensive plans on people.

I am still grandfathered under one of the old plans, which is another reason I haven't switched. The plan I have is 500 minutes, with unlimited text and data for $60. The same plan under the new structure is $80. The unlimited everything is $100. The thing is, when I looked at Verizon, a plan with only 4GB of data was $100, which is why I haven't switched yet.

Edit: Just wanted to add that I haven't heard of them throttling plans with the unlimited streaming.

parallelist · Sep 25, 2012

Cricket Unlocked for International Use?

If anyone has confirmed whether the iPhone 5 will be unlocked for international use on Cricket, please let us know.

usarioclave · Sep 26, 2012

Ye

parallelist said:
If anyone has confirmed whether the iPhone 5 will be unlocked for international use on Cricket, please let us know.

Just talked to in-store, online, and phone CSRs and the iPhone 5 is internationally unlocked.

They didn't know if it was domestically unlocked, a la verizon.

usarioclave · Oct 1, 2012

Unlocked

I just stuffed a cut-down international sim card into the cricket phone, and it roamed to AT&T and T-Mobile fine. I stuck a cut down AT&T sim, and the phone was stuck on "searching."

I think that means that it's unlocked internationally, and locked down domestically. Oh well.

kevincredible · Oct 2, 2012

usarioclave said:
I just stuffed a cut-down international sim card into the cricket phone, and it roamed to AT&T and T-Mobile fine. I stuck a cut down AT&T sim, and the phone was stuck on "searching."

I think that means that it's unlocked internationally, and locked down domestically. Oh well.

I just cut down my UK Vodafone SIM card and put it in a Cricket iPhone 5 whilst in the US...it seems to be searching for a carrier constantly so it can't be used in roaming mode whilst in the US. The Cricket cust support says that it will work outside of the US. I will be going there in a few days so we'll see.

ouchyoung · Oct 4, 2012

usarioclave said:
I just stuffed a cut-down international sim card into the cricket phone, and it roamed to AT&T and T-Mobile fine. I stuck a cut down AT&T sim, and the phone was stuck on "searching."

I think that means that it's unlocked internationally, and locked down domestically. Oh well.

Is that phone an iPhone?

kevincredible said:
I just cut down my UK Vodafone SIM card and put it in a Cricket iPhone 5 whilst in the US...it seems to be searching for a carrier constantly so it can't be used in roaming mode whilst in the US. The Cricket cust support says that it will work outside of the US. I will be going there in a few days so we'll see.

Ah... it sounds not good... have you tried that abroad? I have ordered an iPhone 5 from cricket, too and I also have to use it overseas, waiting for your answer...

ouchyoung · Oct 4, 2012

usarioclave said:
Just talked to in-store, online, and phone CSRs and the iPhone 5 is internationally unlocked.

They didn't know if it was domestically unlocked, a la verizon.

Who did you talk to? Apple or Cricket?

Thanks!

ouchyoung · Oct 6, 2012

iPhone 5 from Cricket is not able to roam domestic?

Just called the customer service and the representative told me that this phone is not even able to roam domestic because the iPhone only works on their own network, and they don't have their network covered everywhere, the roaming devices will work on their partner network, like Sprint... WTF!

kevincredible · Oct 7, 2012

ouchyoung said:
Just called the customer service and the representative told me that this phone is not even able to roam domestic because the iPhone only works on their own network, and they don't have their network covered everywhere, the roaming devices will work on their partner network, like Sprint... WTF!

I am now in the UK and put in a Vodafone UK GSM nano sim card. It still keeps saying Searching... The SIM is not faulty as it works in an officially unlocked iPhone here.

Not sure what to do with this "Searching..." status in the carrier bar. Anyone else have any luck

ouchyoung · Oct 7, 2012

kevincredible said:
I am now in the UK and put in a Vodafone UK GSM nano sim card. It still keeps saying Searching... The SIM is not faulty as it works in an officially unlocked iPhone here.

Not sure what to do with this "Searching..." status in the carrier bar. Anyone else have any luck

Ah... Not good, it seems it‘s locked even outside the US. Have you called the Cricket customer service for solutions? They promised me that the phone shall be unlocked outside the US when I was placing the order via telephone. Hmm... Maybe you can call Cricket for a solution.

And I will return my phone which still remains in original seal.

BTW, somebody said that you may need a full reset of the device for using it with another carrier, have you tried with that?

To reset: by holding the sleep and home button for about 10sec, until the Apple logo comes back again.

Or this:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4137

Crossing my figures waiting for your reply...

ouchyoung · Oct 7, 2012

usarioclave said:
Does anyone know if Cricket will have their GSM side unlocked?

It's LOCKED! All the sales and CSRs are trained to answer that way. And it's proven by a guy here

----------

M-O said:
the 4s is currently SIM unlocked for international roaming. i would imagine the 5 will be also.

Then you are disappointed. The iPhone 5 from Cricket is locked on both GSM and CDMA

narendemon · Oct 8, 2012

kevincredible said:
I am now in the UK and put in a Vodafone UK GSM nano sim card. It still keeps saying Searching... The SIM is not faulty as it works in an officially unlocked iPhone here.

Not sure what to do with this "Searching..." status in the carrier bar. Anyone else have any luck

hi.. i ve heard tht the iphone 5s get unlocked if u restore it in the itunes.. can u just try tht out n let us know if ur cricket iphone 5 is working in UK.. i was gonna buy the phone from cricket today, after seeing this post im having second thoughts.. so pls try doing a restore n let us know if it works..
awaiting ur response with fingers crossed

kevincredible · Oct 8, 2012

narendemon said:
hi.. i ve heard tht the iphone 5s get unlocked if u restore it in the itunes.. can u just try tht out n let us know if ur cricket iphone 5 is working in UK.. i was gonna buy the phone from cricket today, after seeing this post im having second thoughts.. so pls try doing a restore n let us know if it works..
awaiting ur response with fingers crossed

I have tried a restore and wiped the phone. Went through setup and activation process and the phone is still saying "Searching...".

I actually don't think the phone is locked for GSM worldwide because it would have said something like "The SIM card inserted in this iPhone does not appear to be supported. Only compatible SIM cards from a supported carrier may be used to activate iPhone. Please insert the SIM card that came with your iPhone or visit a supported carrier store." Mine doesn't say that when I put the SIM card in it.

Also when I go into Settings > General > About, under carrier it says Vodafone UK 13.0. So it's reading the SIM.

I've spoken to numerous Cricket support staff and they all say that it's unlocked for GSM networks.

Anyone else have any luck??

natalie1981 · Oct 8, 2012

kevincredible said:
I have tried a restore and wiped the phone. Went through setup and activation process and the phone is still saying "Searching...".

I actually don't think the phone is locked for GSM worldwide because it would have said something like "The SIM card inserted in this iPhone does not appear to be supported. Only compatible SIM cards from a supported carrier may be used to activate iPhone. Please insert the SIM card that came with your iPhone or visit a supported carrier store." Mine doesn't say that when I put the SIM card in it.

Also when I go into Settings > General > About, under carrier it says Vodafone UK 13.0. So it's reading the SIM.

I've spoken to numerous Cricket support staff and they all say that it's unlocked for GSM networks.

Anyone else have any luck??

Try toggling off the 3g see if it could get into 2g network. Then toggle on/off airplane mode.

Anyone have any idea if I could get this online? I know only a few cities are supported but if I put in a supported city as my billing address, would it be possible to ship to a non-supported city?

ouchyoung · Oct 8, 2012

kevincredible said:
I have tried a restore and wiped the phone. Went through setup and activation process and the phone is still saying "Searching...".

I actually don't think the phone is locked for GSM worldwide because it would have said something like "The SIM card inserted in this iPhone does not appear to be supported. Only compatible SIM cards from a supported carrier may be used to activate iPhone. Please insert the SIM card that came with your iPhone or visit a supported carrier store." Mine doesn't say that when I put the SIM card in it.

Also when I go into Settings > General > About, under carrier it says Vodafone UK 13.0. So it's reading the SIM.

I've spoken to numerous Cricket support staff and they all say that it's unlocked for GSM networks.

Anyone else have any luck??

That's wired... But I think your phone should have been activated at the first time, correct?

----------

natalie1981 said:
Try toggling off the 3g see if it could get into 2g network. Then toggle on/off airplane mode.

Anyone have any idea if I could get this online? I know only a few cities are supported but if I put in a supported city as my billing address, would it be possible to ship to a non-supported city?

I can answer your second question, YES! I did that, they shipped me the device to a city they don't sell iPhone 5.

natalie1981 · Oct 8, 2012

ouchyoung said:
That's wired... But I think your phone should have been activated at the first time, correct?

----------

I don't think it needs to be activated. If indeed the GSM is unlocked, just pop in an international sim and you're good to go, at least, that's what happened to a sealed Verizon iPhone 5 I bought.

I can answer your second question, YES! I did that, they shipped me the device to a city they don't sell iPhone 5.

Thanks for the reply, that's good to know but do I have to pay the first month's line rental for Cricket or could I just cancel immediately?

ouchyoung · Oct 8, 2012

natalie1981 said:
I don't think it needs to be activated. If indeed the GSM is unlocked, just pop in an international sim and you're good to go, at least, that's what happened to a sealed Verizon iPhone 5 I bought.

Thanks for the reply, that's good to know but do I have to pay the first month's line rental for Cricket or could I just cancel immediately?

I meant his phone has been activated already, as he brought his phone to UK from US.

It's not able to be waived, you have to pay for it.

ouchyoung · Oct 8, 2012

kevincredible said:
I have tried a restore and wiped the phone. Went through setup and activation process and the phone is still saying "Searching...".

I actually don't think the phone is locked for GSM worldwide because it would have said something like "The SIM card inserted in this iPhone does not appear to be supported. Only compatible SIM cards from a supported carrier may be used to activate iPhone. Please insert the SIM card that came with your iPhone or visit a supported carrier store." Mine doesn't say that when I put the SIM card in it.

Also when I go into Settings > General > About, under carrier it says Vodafone UK 13.0. So it's reading the SIM.

I've spoken to numerous Cricket support staff and they all say that it's unlocked for GSM networks.

Anyone else have any luck??

I just searched around the net and found that many Chinese encountered this problem since iPhone 4, the device can read information from the SIM card, and you can see the phone number in iTunes and on the phone, but you can not just connect to the cellular network. Or you cannot make any phone call even if it has been reporting a good signal status.

However, Somebody finally figured out the reason, reported that it's due to the individual compatibility between the specific combination of card and iPhone, they replaced the SIM card with another one (the sells would like to lend their own card to you for testing in China

), even from the same carrier, the phone worked normally at once the new card was popped in. And after requesting a new SIM with the same number, their phones recovered without any modification.

And somebody succeeded with this by another method: popping out and popping in the SIM card time and time again...

Maybe you should bring your phone to a Vodafone store, or another carrier? I think they should be glad to help you for trying that out

Crossing my fingers waiting for you answer ...

narendemon · Oct 8, 2012

ouchyoung said:
I just searched around the net and found that many Chinese encountered this problem since iPhone 4, the device can read information from the SIM card, and you can see the phone number in iTunes and on the phone, but you can not just connect to the cellular network. Or you cannot make any phone call even if it has been reporting a good signal status.

However, Somebody finally figured out the reason, reported that it's due to the individual compatibility between the specific combination of card and iPhone, they replaced the SIM card with another one (the sells would like to lend their own card to you for testing in China ), even from the same carrier, the phone worked normally at once the new card was popped in. And after requesting a new SIM with the same number, their phones recovered without any modification.

And somebody succeeded with this by another method: popping out and popping in the SIM card time and time again...

Maybe you should bring your phone to a Vodafone store, or another carrier? I think they should be glad to help you for trying that out

Crossing my fingers waiting for you answer ...

wat do u mean by getting a compatible sim.. all sim cards r just the same..
is nt it ??
i was gonna buy the cricket phone n bring in to india n use it here :-/
hope kevincredible finds a solution soon... i gotta plan to catch in a few days !

ouchyoung · Oct 8, 2012

narendemon said:
wat do u mean by getting a compatible sim.. all sim cards r just the same..
is nt it ??
i was gonna buy the cricket phone n bring in to india n use it here :-/
hope kevincredible finds a solution soon... i gotta plan to catch in a few days !

Yes, they are supposed to be all the same, but I think there would be some minor differences among those cards, which may lead to worse or better connections between phone and card, that's why somebody succeeded to make phone call with popping out and popping in the cards.

narendemon · Oct 8, 2012

dammit.. wer am i gonna get such a sim card.. the iphone 5 is nt even launched officially in my country yet !.

do u know atleast if the phone can be unlocked manually ?
i mean every iphone in the past was unlocked eventually after jailbreaking...

narendemon · Oct 8, 2012

okay.. i called cricket wireless customer care now .. n they said the phone is GSM unlocked for international carrier .. and u will be able to use it overseas ..

kevincredible · Oct 9, 2012

I activated the phone with Cricket in the US already and I brought it to the UK. That's when it didn't work and kept saying "Searching..." when I put in the Vodafone UK SIM card.

I then restored the phone and went through the setup and activation process. That's when I experienced the same issues.

Will be going to Vodafone and check with them. Will also try other networks here.

Last resort, I will be taking it to my Apple store for them to diagnose it.

narendemon · Oct 9, 2012

okay.. hoping to get a word from u soon...
also try reset network settings n stuffs..

they told me its gsm unlocked for international carriers.
so it had to work... see if u have inserted the sim properly ,
n also try switching from airplane mode n then to normal mode..

ouchyoung · Oct 9, 2012

kevincredible said:
I activated the phone with Cricket in the US already and I brought it to the UK. That's when it didn't work and kept saying "Searching..." when I put in the Vodafone UK SIM card.

I then restored the phone and went through the setup and activation process. That's when I experienced the same issues.

Will be going to Vodafone and check with them. Will also try other networks here.

Last resort, I will be taking it to my Apple store for them to diagnose it.

You great man!

----------

narendemon said:
okay.. i called cricket wireless customer care now .. n they said the phone is GSM unlocked for international carrier .. and u will be able to use it overseas ..

Just activate it before going back...

Cricket and C Spire to Offer iPhone 5 Beginning September 28 [Updated]

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