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Verizon Sim Card Question

E

EW800

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 4, 2012
470
269
I admit it... I am literally stupid regard to SIM cards. Hoping for some clarification. I will be receiving a 6+ through Verizon. It sounds like it will be coming with a SIM, if I am not mistaken. Is it definitely that SIM that I should put in or is there any reason that I should put the SIM from my current 5 in it?

Thanks!
 
I

ineel

macrumors regular
Jul 8, 2010
211
11
EW800 said:
I admit it... I am literally stupid regard to SIM cards. Hoping for some clarification. I will be receiving a 6+ through Verizon. It sounds like it will be coming with a SIM, if I am not mistaken. Is it definitely that SIM that I should put in or is there any reason that I should put the SIM from my current 5 in it?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

When you activate your new iPhone, there is already a new sim card in your new phone that will become activated. at the same time, the old sim card in your old iPhone will become automatically deactivated.

LTE is a GSM technology, and GSM requires a device to have a SIM card for device-network authentication.
 
E

EW800

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 4, 2012
470
269
ineel said:
When you activate your new iPhone, there is already a new sim card in your new phone that will become activated. at the same time, the old sim card in your old iPhone will become automatically deactivated.

LTE is a GSM technology, and GSM requires a device to have a SIM card for device-network authentication.
Click to expand...

Thanks so much for the clarification!!
 
macblitz

macblitz

macrumors regular
Sep 12, 2014
114
62
davefromca said:
Im still confused about why verizon asked me if i wanted to keep my old sim card.
Click to expand...

Who from verizon ask you that? a local store employee? online website?

The word "sim card" should not even pop up at all. everything should automatically work when buying a new iphone 6 from verizon.

The word "sim card" does pop up if you buy an android phone. but usually not iphone.
 
I

ineel

macrumors regular
Jul 8, 2010
211
11
davefromca said:
Im still confused about why verizon asked me if i wanted to keep my old sim card.
Click to expand...

They don't need to ask you that if you are getting a new iPhone. There is already a sim card in the new iPhone that will become activated when you activate the phone. the old sim card will simply become deactivated and useless other than a piece of plastic you can burn to extract energy to power your non-eco-friendly power plant.
 
S

soleilvie

macrumors member
Apr 14, 2010
85
0
ineel said:
They don't need to ask you that if you are getting a new iPhone. There is already a sim card in the new iPhone that will become activated when you activate the phone. the old sim card will simply become deactivated and useless other than a piece of plastic you can burn to extract energy to power your non-eco-friendly power plant.
Click to expand...

When I pre-ordered my 6 through vzw.com, I was asked if I wanted to keep my 4G SIM. I said yes, because I don't know? I've never had that option when pre-ordering an iPhone.
 
enzo thecat

enzo thecat

macrumors 6502
Apr 7, 2010
311
151
Midwest USA
macblitz said:
Who from verizon ask you that? a local store employee? online website?

The word "sim card" should not even pop up at all. everything should automatically work when buying a new iphone 6 from verizon.

The word "sim card" does pop up if you buy an android phone. but usually not iphone.
Click to expand...

You have no idea what you're talking about
 
Arnezie

Arnezie

macrumors 65816
Oct 10, 2011
1,317
115
macblitz said:
Who from verizon ask you that? a local store employee? online website?



The word "sim card" should not even pop up at all. everything should automatically work when buying a new iphone 6 from verizon.



The word "sim card" does pop up if you buy an android phone. but usually not iphone.
Click to expand...


Umm ok you seem to know less than the op
 
V

VO2Max

macrumors member
Sep 12, 2014
36
0
ineel said:
They don't need to ask you that if you are getting a new iPhone. There is already a sim card in the new iPhone that will become activated when you activate the phone. the old sim card will simply become deactivated and useless other than a piece of plastic you can burn to extract energy to power your non-eco-friendly power plant.
Click to expand...

When I preordered the iPhone 6 online @ Verizon it asked me if I wanted to keep my existing SIM card or receive a new one. I chose to get a new one shipped with the phone, even though I have an iPhone 5. However, I'm not keeping the 6 on my line but will transfer it to my wife's line which has unlimited data. I know you can transfer phones between lines but where I'm a little confused is what to do about the SIM card that is coming with the iPhone 6. Her current phone is a Verizon iPhone 4, which I believe does not have a SIM card in it b/c it's CDMA (I could be totally wrong, so please corrent me if I am).

Is the SIM card that is coming with the new phone tied to the 2GB data plan that I chose at checkout? If so, when I transfer the phone to her line do we need to get rid of the new SIM card and go to Verizon and ask for a new one that will allow her to keep her UD. I don't want to screw anything up and loose her UD since all we are doing is transferring phones and did nothing to alter her data plan.
 
I

ineel

macrumors regular
Jul 8, 2010
211
11
VO2Max said:
When I preordered the iPhone 6 online @ Verizon it asked me if I wanted to keep my existing SIM card or receive a new one. I chose to get a new one shipped with the phone, even though I have an iPhone 5. However, I'm not keeping the 6 on my line but will transfer it to my wife's line which has unlimited data. I know you can transfer phones between lines but where I'm a little confused is what to do about the SIM card that is coming with the iPhone 6. Her current phone is a Verizon iPhone 4, which I believe does not have a SIM card in it b/c it's CDMA (I could be totally wrong, so please corrent me if I am).

Is the SIM card that is coming with the new phone tied to the 2GB data plan that I chose at checkout? If so, when I transfer the phone to her line do we need to get rid of the new SIM card and go to Verizon and ask for a new one that will allow her to keep her UD. I don't want to screw anything up and loose her UD since all we are doing is transferring phones and did nothing to alter her data plan.
Click to expand...

So the reason why Verizon uses SIM cards is because LTE is a GSM technology and GSM requires the use of SIM cards. Currently, only data/SMS/MMS is transferred over the LTE network while phone calls use the CDMA network. So when you transfer to a new phone, you have to take your SIM card to the new phone otherwise LTE data will not work (3G will work when you flash over). Because your wife is moving from an iPhone 4 to iPhone 5, you will need to go to a Verizon store and tell them that she needs a new SIM card for her phone so that LTE data can start working. Otherwise, your wife will be stuck with 3G data once she flashes over to iPhone 5.

In the future when verizon activates VoLTE (4G voice), they will be shutting down the CDMA network to have all data/voice/messaging over 4G/future 5G networks. Flashing will no longer be required, and only SIM cards will be used to identify users, just like GSM of today like at&t/T-Mobile. You can think of Verizon being in a "transition" phase from a CDMA carrier to a GSM carrier. With VoLTE coming online sometime next year on Verizon, your iPhone 6 may as well never connect to the CDMA network again as it will no longer need to fall back to CDMA to make phone calls.
 
V

VO2Max

macrumors member
Sep 12, 2014
36
0
ineel said:
So the reason why Verizon uses SIM cards is because LTE is a GSM technology and GSM requires the use of SIM cards. Currently, only data/SMS/MMS is transferred over the LTE network while phone calls use the CDMA network. So when you transfer to a new phone, you have to take your SIM card to the new phone otherwise LTE data will not work (3G will work when you flash over). Because your wife is moving from an iPhone 4 to iPhone 5, you will need to go to a Verizon store and tell them that she needs a new SIM card for her phone so that LTE data can start working. Otherwise, your wife will be stuck with 3G data once she flashes over to iPhone 5.

In the future when verizon activates VoLTE (4G voice), they will be shutting down the CDMA network to have all data/voice/messaging over 4G/future 5G networks. Flashing will no longer be required, and only SIM cards will be used to identify users, just like GSM of today like at&t/T-Mobile. You can think of Verizon being in a "transition" phase from a CDMA carrier to a GSM carrier. With VoLTE coming online sometime next year on Verizon, your iPhone 6 may as well never connect to the CDMA network again as it will no longer need to fall back to CDMA to make phone calls.
Click to expand...

Thanks for explaining this as I was not aware of the differences between GSM and CDMA. Makes sense now. Will swing by a Verizon store soon to pick up a new SIM card once the new phone gets here and we get ready to do the phone transfer.

My only concern is that since the SIM card contains the lines subscriber info (i.e. what plan type you are on, which in her case has UD) the new SIM has to contain that info, correct? They should be able to provide a SIM compatible for that I would hope. The SIM coming with the new phone is tied to my line with a 2GB TDP, so we don't want that on her line.
 
I

ineel

macrumors regular
Jul 8, 2010
211
11
VO2Max said:
Thanks for explaining this as I was not aware of the differences between GSM and CDMA. Makes sense now. Will swing by a Verizon store soon to pick up a new SIM card once the new phone gets here and we get ready to do the phone transfer.

My only concern is that since the SIM card contains the lines subscriber info (i.e. what plan type you are on, which in her case has UD) the new SIM has to contain that info, correct? They should be able to provide a SIM compatible for that I would hope. The SIM coming with the new phone is tied to my line with a 2GB TDP, so we don't want that on her line.
Click to expand...

To my knowledge, the SIM card hold nothing other than a 16 digit code kind of like a bar code for the cell network to tell who is using the minutes/data/messaging. Your subscriber info/plan/etc is all stored on verizon servers. Its very much like a credit card, the card itself stores your cc number and your name. Every time you make a call/text/data session the card gets "swiped". SIM cards can be interchanged into any supporting phone without calling the carrier.
 
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