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npolly0212

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 21, 2015
1,374
463
I found someone wanting to sell his iPad 128gb wifi+4g for $800.00. The thing is he told me I have to choose which company I want to put the plan under since there is no apple sim in it.

Does this mean I will have to do a monthly plan on it? Or will I still be able to do the month to month where I can turn it on one month and than not have cellular data on it for a few months?

Never owned any cellular iPad devices before so no idea how this works.
 
Which iPad model is that exactly? $800 sounds pretty steep for a used device. Apple sells certified refurb Air 2s 128GB LTE for $599 with 1-year warranty.
 
My only experience with this is with Verizon. The one time I tried to do month-to-month in-store (made a mistake and bought my iPad on postpaid on VZW website), the associates had no idea what to do. Granted, that was circa iPad 3 and I believe it might have been Verizon's first time dealing with SIM-based iPads. What I ended up doing was to buy a brand new Verizon SIM from ebay and used that to activate the account on the iPad itself (using the Cellular menu). The whole thing went without a hitch. Should've gone the ebay route first and saved myself the hassle on untrained VZW CSR. One caveat, once you activate a SIM card/account, Verizon will deactivate your SIM card/account if it has not been used for 6 months.

Alternately, another avenue you might try is a local Apple Store. I've read some posts about Apple giving new SIM cards to customers if they ask. They'll probably even help you set it up if you schedule a training session.
 
It's easy.
Just go to any carrier store that you want, ask them for a prepaid iPad SIM, and done. You can select the plans right from the iPad during activation.

I tried AT&T and Verizon in the past, and any activation issues got rectified with simple phone call.
 
My only experience with this is with Verizon. The one time I tried to do month-to-month in-store (made a mistake and bought my iPad on postpaid on VZW website), the associates had no idea what to do. Granted, that was circa iPad 3 and I believe it might have been Verizon's first time dealing with SIM-based iPads. What I ended up doing was to buy a brand new Verizon SIM from ebay and used that to activate the account on the iPad itself (using the Cellular menu). The whole thing went without a hitch. Should've gone the ebay route first and saved myself the hassle on untrained VZW CSR. One caveat, once you activate a SIM card/account, Verizon will deactivate your SIM card/account if it has not been used for 6 months.

Alternately, another avenue you might try is a local Apple Store. I've read some posts about Apple giving new SIM cards to customers if they ask. They'll probably even help you set it up if you schedule a training session.

Awesome thanks for sharing with me!

It's easy.
Just go to any carrier store that you want, ask them for a prepaid iPad SIM, and done. You can select the plans right from the iPad during activation.

I tried AT&T and Verizon in the past, and any activation issues got rectified with simple phone call.
Now would it be possible for me to somehow get an pole sim so I can choose right on the iPad which one I would like to use instead of being stuck with t-mobile or whatnot every time?
 
Now would it be possible for me to somehow get an pole sim so I can choose right on the iPad which one I would like to use instead of being stuck with t-mobile or whatnot every time?
I don't know for sure how the Apple SIM work as I didn't have experience with it.
But changing carriers is easy enough. Just get the carrier's SIM that you want, put it in the iPad, and go through the activation. I was switching back-n-forth between AT&T and Verizon on my iPad 3, 4, then my mini 2 without much fuss. The only issue I had that I mentioned was the Verizon SIM was having issues in activation, and all I did was call Verizon support and it was rectified quickly (I think I left the SIM dormant for sometime so it needs to be re-activated).

The plans available on the iPad are prepaid, not subscription/post-paid. You just pay in-advance for the amount of quota for 30 days. Once it ends, that's it, no more data, until you re-purchase the plan. So you are not stuck paying every month.
 
I don't know for sure how the Apple SIM work as I didn't have experience with it.
But changing carriers is easy enough. Just get the carrier's SIM that you want, put it in the iPad, and go through the activation. I was switching back-n-forth between AT&T and Verizon on my iPad 3, 4, then my mini 2 without much fuss. The only issue I had that I mentioned was the Verizon SIM was having issues in activation, and all I did was call Verizon support and it was rectified quickly (I think I left the SIM dormant for sometime so it needs to be re-activated).

The plans available on the iPad are prepaid, not subscription/post-paid. You just pay in-advance for the amount of quota for 30 days. Once it ends, that's it, no more data, until you re-purchase the plan. So you are not stuck paying every month.
Awesome, thanks a lot. May as well pick this one up for,800 than! Lol
 
Awesome, thanks a lot. May as well pick this one up for,800 than! Lol
Oh another note. I think there's an option to auto-renew the data plan. Of course if you opt in for auto renew, it will just renew the plan after 30 days and charge your credit card. FYI.
 
Oh another note. I think there's an option to auto-renew the data plan. Of course if you opt in for auto renew, it will just renew the plan after 30 days and charge your credit card. FYI.
Yeah, I won't be using it monthly, so that's why I was concerned with not getting an apple sim. I appreciate all the information you shared with me!
 
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