How does the iPhone 5 work overseas

[Myiphone7]

If you had an iPhone 5 AT&T unlocked and you went overseas and popped in a sim from a cellular provider in that country that only provided voice,

would the area where it says LTE just be blank?

How would texting work on a prepaid card? Of you tried to text but it didn't have texts would simply give the send error?

 

[scaredpoet]

If you had an iPhone 5 AT&T unlocked and you went overseas and popped in a sim from a cellular provider in that country that only provided voice,

would the area where it says LTE just be blank?

How would texting work on a prepaid card? Of you tried to text but it didn't have texts would simply give the send error?

More likely than not you would see "3G" or "4G" instead of LTE, and texts and everything else would still work.

The iPhone 5 still has world multiband HSPA+ and GSM radios, which will work overseas. LTE will just be limited.

Even if you find a carrier that doesn't offer data (I don't think any such carriers exist anymore), texts will still work. Standard SMS operates through the paging channel, the same system used for voice. iMessages would be a problem, but you'd just end up receiving and sending over SMS.

Again, I doubt you'll find a network like this though. Packet data over GSM has been around for 13 years. I don't even think it's possible to deply a GSM netowrk that lacks even GPRS.

 

[617aircav]

If you had an iPhone 5 AT&T unlocked and you went overseas and popped in a sim from a cellular provider in that country that only provided voice,

would the area where it says LTE just be blank?

How would texting work on a prepaid card? Of you tried to text but it didn't have texts would simply give the send error?

Test will be available unless you have it disabled. It will just be taken out of your account balance.

 

[quietstormSD]

I guess you would be buying a prepaid plan with only minutes and text with no data? If so, I'm pretty sure that is all you would get is text and minutes. But be careful, because they may charge you a pay as you use for data. Like something ridiculous like $5/1mb.

Usually overseas prepaid plans have very cheap unlimited data.

 

[Myiphone7]

More likely than not you would see "3G" or "4G" instead of LTE, and texts and everything else would still work.

The iPhone 5 still has world multiband HSPA+ and GSM radios, which will work overseas. LTE will just be limited.

Even if you find a carrier that doesn't offer data (I don't think any such carriers exist anymore), texts will still work. Standard SMS operates through the paging channel, the same system used for voice. iMessages would be a problem, but you'd just end up receiving and sending over SMS.

Again, I doubt you'll find a network like this though. Packet data over GSM has been around for 13 years. I don't even think it's possible to deply a GSM netowrk that lacks even GPRS.

But how would they bill you? Like if I buy a prepaid sim for 1000 minutes and popped it in but sent a text how would they charge me for the text?

 

[iDuel]

But how would they bill you? Like if I buy a prepaid sim for 1000 minutes and popped it in but sent a text how would they charge me for the text?

Most likely, you wouldn't be buying a sim that offers 1000 minutes, but a sim with a prepaid card which has a value on it. So if you sent a text it would be deducted from the card's value.