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Carrier iPad Air: *Really* One LTE Model?

Anyone have any info on international usage? I want to buy one here in the States (probably Verizon, but not set on that) for my girlfriend who travels to Canada constantly.

When buying the Verizon iPad 3 on launch at an Apple store here in the US they completely misled me and said it was LTE compatible in Canada too (when it is most definitely not). Should've done more research then...

Based on this this thread the Air looks promising for compatibility, but can anyone confirm?
 
smurphy917 said:
So I read that as you have to actually sign up with tmobile to get the data - this is obvious. Basically you have to have an account with them. But from all the coverage I've seen about the 200mb of free data, the whole reason it was news and the big deal about it is that there are no strings attached and it's free to anyone with a tablet. I think tmob is desperately looking for an in with customers and this is a play in that direction. They're hoping that when 200mb proves not enough, you'll agree to pay them a little more instead of switching carriers entirely--it'll be easy as you already have the sim and the account set up.

If that's not the case then tmob has been extremely misleading about the whole thing and that would very much go against the image they're working hard to perpetuate right now.
Click to expand...

So basically I'm an ATT customer. My new iPad is fully activated on TMOB, the only issue I had was I didn't reboot after setting it up. Past that 200 MB, and I didn't give them any credit card although when I called up they tried to run a credit check on me.
 
rui no onna said:
So true. Happened to me when I went to get a SIM card to switch my iPad 3 from postpaid to prepaid.
Click to expand...

Ok, so I just got off the phone with T-mobile, I told them that I bought an Verizon iPad air (which isn't true), and that I was interested in acquiring a sim card, they said no problem! BUT! When I asked if I could access the free 200mb with that card they said no, I have to use the card that come in the iPad to be able to access the free 200mb! What does that card have that makes it so magical? or is it bull? He didn't seem to know very much...I can see people trying to sell their iPad tmobile cards for a few extra bucks if they do have something special, which I doubt... Oh! and by the way they told me that today was the last day that they would offer sim cards for .99 supposedly so they are catching on to this.... What to do!? I want a verizon iPad but want to be able to put in a T-mobile card to get the free 200mb or my att card and be able to use LTE for everything, plus use the verizon one when I need to do tethering, since I have an unlimited att plan the bastards don't let me do tethering!
 
Anolis23 said:
Ok, so I just got off the phone with T-mobile, I told them that I bought an Verizon iPad air (which isn't true), and that I was interested in acquiring a sim card, they said no problem! BUT! When I asked if I could access the free 200mb with that card they said no, I have to use the card that come in the iPad to be able to access the free 200mb! What does that card have that makes it so magical? or is it bull? He didn't seem to know very much...I can see people trying to sell their iPad tmobile cards for a few extra bucks if they do have something special, which I doubt... Oh! and by the way they told me that today was the last day that they would offer sim cards for .99 supposedly so they are catching on to this.... What to do!? I want a verizon iPad but want to be able to put in a T-mobile card to get the free 200mb or my att card and be able to use LTE for everything, plus use the verizon one when I need to do tethering, since I have an unlimited att plan the bastards don't let me do tethering!
Click to expand...

If there is any magic, it is that the SIM's ID is flagged in their billing database for it, nothing more. There is no reason they couldn't flag more SIMs in the same way, but it appears T-Mobile has had issues rolling this whole thing out internally.
 
Anolis23 said:
Ok, so I just got off the phone with T-mobile, I told them that I bought an Verizon iPad air (which isn't true), and that I was interested in acquiring a sim card, they said no problem! BUT! When I asked if I could access the free 200mb with that card they said no, I have to use the card that come in the iPad to be able to access the free 200mb! What does that card have that makes it so magical? or is it bull? He didn't seem to know very much...I can see people trying to sell their iPad tmobile cards for a few extra bucks if they do have something special, which I doubt... Oh! and by the way they told me that today was the last day that they would offer sim cards for .99 supposedly so they are catching on to this.... What to do!? I want a verizon iPad but want to be able to put in a T-mobile card to get the free 200mb or my att card and be able to use LTE for everything, plus use the verizon one when I need to do tethering, since I have an unlimited att plan the bastards don't let me do tethering!
Click to expand...

Don't worry about it, I can confirm that it works just fine.

I bought a Sprint iPad (LTE coverage is good in my area, and their plans are cheap on the lower end if you only want one or two gigabytes, which is $15 for either depending on the promotion), but I also wanted the free data from T-Mobile. So I bought the Sprint LTE iPad and also asked for a T-Mobile nano-sim from Apple when I checked out (they told me it was only for the iPhone, not iPad, but they gave it to me anyway and it was free). When I got home, I replaced the installed Sprint sim with the T-Mobile sim, created an account in Settings, and activated the free 200MB data. Works like a charm.

TL;DR Buying a CDMA iPad and then popping in a new T-Mobile SIM will get you free T-Mobile data, and will also work with CDMA carrier.
 
jbouklas said:
Don't worry about it, I can confirm that it works just fine.

I bought a Sprint iPad (LTE coverage is good in my area, and their plans are cheap on the lower end if you only want one or two gigabytes, which is $15 for either depending on the promotion), but I also wanted the free data from T-Mobile. So I bought the Sprint LTE iPad and also asked for a T-Mobile nano-sim from Apple when I checked out (they told me it was only for the iPhone, not iPad, but they gave it to me anyway and it was free). When I got home, I replaced the installed Sprint sim with the T-Mobile sim, created an account in Settings, and activated the free 200MB data. Works like a charm.

TL;DR Buying a CDMA iPad and then popping in a new T-Mobile SIM will get you free T-Mobile data, and will also work with CDMA carrier.
Click to expand...

Ok, So I called again and I got another person, and she definitely knew what I was talking about. She said that I could buy the card and use it on a Verizon iPad and have access to the 200mb. It only cost me $1.07 and she also told me that after today they will be selling the cards for $20 I believe it was. I guess if it doesn't work anyways its still worth to buy for that amount of money…
 
Well... Looks line I just gave t-mobile $1 for no reason :(

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57610605-94/t-mobiles-no-money-down-ipad-offer-requires-$20-monthly-plan/
 
Anolis23 said:
Well... Looks line I just gave t-mobile $1 for no reason :(

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57610605-94/t-mobiles-no-money-down-ipad-offer-requires-$20-monthly-plan/
Click to expand...

Actually I might be Ok, that article is horribly written...
 
Ok - I picked up t-mo Nano Sim. Stuck it in my 2012 iPad Mini (ATT) - activated the 200mb plan with 0 charge per month.
And done (no credits, just straight up 0 per month)
-Shaown
 
ciaran00 said:
Guys, from this website:
http://store.apple.com/us/buy-ipad/ipad-air

It says in step 3:
Choose a network carrier.
Your iPad will work only with the carrier you choose.

Why would it say that?
Click to expand...

Because it is a mistake?
Because it only works with the Carrier whose SIM you choose to have inserted at any particular time?

I can confirm that a free BYOD T-Mobile nanoSIM works in an "AT&T iPad Air" (and that the AT&T SIM works, too).
 
Here's something I just thought of: if you buy a Verizon iPad and put in, e.g., an AT&T SIM card, then sure, 4G will (presumably, if this trend holds) work--but what happens when you're out of a 4G coverage area need to revert to the 3G network (or, forbid, 2G)?

I know at least Verizon didn't use SIM cards for its 3G devices, as the plans were tied to the MEID instead, but I'm assuming this would only be a problem if you were trying to move to Verizon (or Sprint); AT&T and other traditionally GSM carriers have historically done everything with the SIM card as far as I know, but I would be curious how switching to a CDMA carrier, if even possible, would work here, particularly for non-4G, since as far as I know this is, again, MEID-tied and not related to the SIM card (non-4G iDevices have, of course, lacked).

Does anyone know? Has anyone tried this? If not, I wonder if my speculation seems reasonable. This could also be part of why Apple says to choose your carrier at time of purchase.
 
RMo said:
I know at least Verizon didn't use SIM cards for its 3G devices, as the plans were tied to the MEID instead, but I'm assuming this would only be a problem if you were trying to move to Verizon (or Sprint); AT&T and other traditionally GSM carriers have historically done everything with the SIM card as far as I know, but I would be curious how switching to a CDMA carrier, if even possible, would work here, particularly for non-4G, since as far as I know this is, again, MEID-tied and not related to the SIM card (non-4G iDevices have, of course, lacked).

Does anyone know? Has anyone tried this? If not, I wonder if my speculation seems reasonable. This could also be part of why Apple says to choose your carrier at time of purchase.
Click to expand...
Someone's already tried this on this forum. Added a non-Verizon iPad to a Share Everything plan and called customer service to activate ICCID instead of IMEI/MEID (which of course, Verizon's system didn't recognize). It does fall back to 3G and RTT. On an iPad right now so it's a hassle to search for the thread and link to it but it seems as long as you can get Verizon to activate the SIM card, it will work fine.
 
Just to confirm... If I buy a Verizon iPad, it will also work on Att & t-mobile LTE & 3G Networks?
 
Very confused. I bought a T-Mobile Air last week but haven't opened it because I'm not sure if there would be a more future proof carrier version. I plan on mainly using it for the free T-Mobile data, but if I wanted to switch down the road, I'd like to be able to. But after reading a hundred threads, I'm more confused.

Is it entirely reliant on the sim? T-mobile offers sim cards for near free, while others are harder to get. Would that be the only guiding factor, which sim card you want to start off with? In the future, could carriers lock out other ipad carrier versions?

So confused.
 
Add me to the confused list...

I plan to buy an Air today or tomorrow...was planning on Verizon and then getting a T-Mobile SIM...
This would work, right?
 
Safe choice is Verizon or Sprint. I think Sprint may have the broadest compatibility because it's hard to find new, unactivated Sprint SIM cards while Verizon's can be found for a few bucks on ebay. I think both Verizon and Sprint will make it difficult to activate iPads from other carriers on their network so I'd get either one of those iPads depending on which network you're more likely to use.

T-Mobile and AT&T are quite familiar with unlocked devices on their networks and you can easily get T-Mobile and AT&T SIM cards (even from corporate stores) so it's very easy to switch a Verizon or Sprint iPad to them.
 
rpearlberg said:
Add me to the confused list...

I plan to buy an Air today or tomorrow...was planning on Verizon and then getting a T-Mobile SIM...
This would work, right?
Click to expand...

This works. I can confirm because it is exactly what I did. I actually started out with a T-mobile unit, but had to return it due to a screen defect. I picked up a VZW iPad the second time around because it's actually easier to just pop in the T-mobile SIM than it is to get the IMEI added to VZW's list if it wasn't an out-of-the-box VZW unit.

I got the VZW iPad and asked for a T-mobile SIM On the way out. Popped it in and good to go.
 
Anyone know if I can make use of T-mobile's free 200MB on an iPad 1? (It's currently on AT&T). I'm planning on replacing the 1 with an Air shortly, and the old iPad will be relegated to non-mobile use unless I can.
 
Anand confirmed that it was unlocked and there was only 1 model for all carriers. Just seek out his review.

The only reason the boxes are marked as carrier specific is because the SIM is already included.
 
brentsg said:
Anand confirmed that it was unlocked and there was only 1 model for all carriers. Just seek out his review.

The only reason the boxes are marked as carrier specific is because the SIM is already included.
Click to expand...

This is not entirely true. From what I can tell, Sprint will only activate Sprint iPads, and you have to trick Verizon into activating a SIM card, and not a MEID, and you can't access Verizon prepaid data plans on a non-Verizon iPad.

Bottom line: I'd recommend getting either a Verizon or Sprint iPad, since either of those will also work with T-Mobile and AT&T.

If you want Verizon's prepaid data plans (1GB for $20), go with the Verizon model.

If you want Sprint's plans (1GB for $15 prepaid, or 2GB for $15 postpaid), with the option to use it on a Verizon Share Everything account, then get the Sprint model.

I can't think of a reason to buy the T-Mobile or AT&T model. I went with Sprint because of their 2GB for $15 option.

To be clear, there is zero technical reason why you can't buy one iPad and have it work perfectly on all carriers. The only limitation is that Sprint and Verizon maintain MEID databases listing "approved" devices, and make it difficult or impossible to activate unapproved devices.
 
So I think I can settle most of this.

I ordered a 128gb Air as a prepaid pickup at midnight. At 8am I got the "order is ready to pick up" and at 11am I got a call from the Apple Store supervisor saying "Yeah, so sorry, we only had 2 ATT 128gb and we sold them both, our system said we had more but we don't"

I was disappointed and he worked really hard to help me including calling corporate. Corporate told him to sell me a Sprint or ANY other carrier Air and just swap out the SIM.

I went in, got a Sprint 128gb Air. We pulled the SIM right there and put in an ATT sim. I got through activation and setup and went into Cellular settings. The ATT stuff was all there. Logged onto WiFi at the store, pulled up my account and transferred my unlimited (yes!!) ATT account to the new SPRINT iPad Air in about 5 minutes (delay for activation)

Piece of cake. So YES the iPad Air cellular modem is UNIVERSAL!
 
I understand that the iPad works on most carriers and SIMs can be switched but why do I hear of people buying multiple SIMs of the same carrier?
 
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