iPhone 4S use Worldwide with Sim swap?

[iPhoneBurger]

I do a lot of traveling to GSM and CDMA countries.

Ideally I would like to land in that country, find the nearest quickie mart, and buy a local sim card for a local phone number there, which is prepaid. Pop it into my iPhone 4S and not have ANY INTERACTION with my Verizon account back home in the USA.

1) Will this be possible with the iPhone 4s?

2) Will the phone need to be "jailbroken" to accomplish this?

Lastly (this is for those with higher IQ's to answer):

3) Is it a correct statement to say that previous sim-based iPhones could also do this, but since they were only GSM, you could only swap out the sim and have it work in GSM countries? And those phones also needed to be jailbroken?

Thank you.

 

[Intell]

You would need an unlocked iPhone to do this. Verizon/Sprint iPhone 4S are locked to Verizon/Sprint. It is unknown if there will be an unlock for the iPhone 4S via jailbreaking at this time. But it is unlikely.

 

[awadeee]

I do a lot of traveling to GSM and CDMA countries.

Ideally I would like to land in that country, find the nearest quickie mart, and buy a local sim card for a local phone number there, which is prepaid. Pop it into my iPhone 4S and not have ANY INTERACTION with my Verizon account back home in the USA.

1) Will this be possible with the iPhone 4s?

2) Will the phone need to be "jailbroken" to accomplish this?

Lastly (this is for those with higher IQ's to answer):

3) Is it a correct statement to say that previous sim-based iPhones could also do this, but since they were only GSM, you could only swap out the sim and have it work in GSM countries? And those phones also needed to be jailbroken?

Thank you.

1) No. The iPhone 4S will be locked to whichever carrier you purchase it on. Even a CDMA iPhone 4S will have a Vodafone/Verizon SIM card in it that locks the GSM portion too.

2) There will most likely not be a software unlock for the iPhone 4S for a very long time.

3) Yes. Ideally, if you had an unlocked (this is not the same as jailbreaking) GSM iPhone, you could purchase a local prepaid SIM card. With the iPhone 4S, this is possible but the GSM portion must be unlocked. If you want to use it in a CDMA country you will have to use your Verizon service to roam and you will incur roaming charges.

You're welcome!