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About updating IMEI for new iphone 5S

N

nblin

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 2, 2013
32
0
Urbana, IL
I have bought a contract-free iphone 5S from apple.com. And my nano SIM card is from AT&T. I have a question: Do I need to update IMEI of my new iphone 5S via AT&T customer service before using my iphone? Or when activating iphone, it will update IMEI automatically?
 
If you selected it as a "replacement" for your phone as opposed to a new line then when you go through the activation it will automatically activate it in place of the phone.
 
its not like CDMA phones. if you take your SIM out of the phone and put it into the new one, the IMEI will auto register on your account. just pop in your SIM and go.
 
Cdumitru78 said:
Is it any different for a CDMA phone?
Click to expand...

With normal CDMA phones, there is no IMEI. There's either an ESN or MEID. When switching phones, they need to be manually programmed to the users account. This is done either by entering the MEID online on your account if the carrier offers it, or making a phone call to the carrier.

The newer iPhones for CDMA carriers use CDMA for phone calls and LTE for data. LTE is based on GSM so it requires a SIM card. However the main radio is still CDMA. I'm not sure if a SIM card swap is all it would take to switch a phone over or if you would also need to reprogram the MEID on the account.
 
Pop the sim and enjoy. Even if the system takes a while to register your IMEI it shouldn't matter.
Now, if you had only a 3G-4G phone before then you might need to get in touch w a CS to get them to change your plan to LTE.
 
dictoresno said:
With normal CDMA phones, there is no IMEI. There's either an ESN or MEID. When switching phones, they need to be manually programmed to the users account. This is done either by entering the MEID online on your account if the carrier offers it, or making a phone call to the carrier.

The newer iPhones for CDMA carriers use CDMA for phone calls and LTE for data. LTE is based on GSM so it requires a SIM card. However the main radio is still CDMA. I'm not sure if a SIM card swap is all it would take to switch a phone over or if you would also need to reprogram the MEID on the account.
Click to expand...

With CDMA LTE phones you can just sawp the sim if both phones are for the same carrier. I did it with a black VZ i5 -> White VZ i5. However, it did take about 8 minutes to get service
 
iphone46 said:
With CDMA LTE phones you can just sawp the sim if both phones are for the same carrier. I did it with a black VZ i5 -> White VZ i5. However, it did take about 8 minutes to get service
Click to expand...

probably wouldve been instant if you did an MEID swap first but its good to know that worked too.
 
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