If you pay full price for an iphone 5, will at&t unlock it?

[lamenramen]

Hi,

Have a feeling that the answer is 99% no, but here goes...
I know that Apple will sell unlocked iphone 5s in the future, but can I buy an AT&T iphone 5 at the full ridiculous price tomorrow and have them unlock it?

My contract with AT&T ends in 3 weeks.

Thanks

 

[yip1989]

Hi,

Have a feeling that the answer is 99% no, but here goes...
I know that Apple will sell unlocked iphone 5s in the future, but can I buy an AT&T iphone 5 at the full ridiculous price tomorrow and have them unlock it?

My contract with AT&T ends in 3 weeks.

Thanks

Yes, they will as long as you purchase the phone from authorized location.

http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB414532

In addition, AT&T will unlock an iPhone for: (i) an active and deployed member of the military who is a current AT&T customer in good standing and is able to provide AT&T with deployment verification; and (ii) a person who purchased the iPhone from an authorized location at the "no commitment" price and can provide proof of purchase.

 

[lamenramen]

Well now this is great news.

Last question is, after my AT&T iphone 5 is unlocked, is it identical to an unlocked iPhone 5 straight from Apple? I assume that there is no AT&T branding or anything like that, and that the internal radios are one and the same.

 

[dave006]

Well now this is great news.

Last question is, after my AT&T iphone 5 is unlocked, is it identical to an unlocked iPhone 5 straight from Apple? I assume that there is no AT&T branding or anything like that, and that the internal radios are one and the same.

Short answer is maybe.

This year we have two different models of the iPhone 5 being sold in the USA. They support different LTE bands. So until we see the model number for the Apple Unlocked iPhone 5 we don't know.

This is different from last year's iPhone 4S where the AT&T iPhone 4S was considered the same as the Unlocked iPhone 4S from Apple.

Here is the Apple link that describes the differences due to LTE support

http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/

Summary: An Unlocked AT&T iPhone 5 will work on most GSM networks worldwide. It does not have the same LTE bands active as the other Model

So if Worldwide LTE is important, then you should wait until Apple clarifies what their "Unlocked iPhone 5" will support.

Dave