iPhone 5 Verizon at full price from best-buy and using T-Mobile SIM

[araje]

Friends..
I have been reading a lot in trying to make this work when i actually do it.
Quick background: The Verizon iphone(A1429) has LTE bands which my country will support by next year. The ATT(A1428) model will not coz its pretty much US/Canada specific.

Also the GSM interface of Verizon iPhone 5 (A1429) is unlocked by factory so no unlocking required there as I understand.

The Plan: Buy a Verizon wireless plan from bestbuy at full price 699.99 without any verizon plan. Next use tmobile sim (temporarily while in US) to activate it and get it latched to network. Luckily my refarmed area has full solid 3G coverage. So I am expecting to see 3G and Tmobile on the phone and use it at 3G speeds.
Back in my country, I am hoping to use my SIM card and still get 3G but then hop to LTE when my carrier supports it. They have mentioned the band they will work their LTE on as announcement already.

Do u see any problems with this plan. Some say GSM though unlocked will never work LTE even if the sim's carrier is operating on that band. Some say verizon's gsm interface in phone is unlocked but it cannot be activated that way. Needs verizon account to unlock it.

Please.. does anybody here know if these statements are true/false.
Please let me know... very appreciated.

 

[CEmajr]

On the US side it will work with Tmobile right out of the box. Don't need to contact Verizon or anything, just put the Tmobile SIM card in the phone and it's all set. I have a Verizon and a Tmobile account and occasionally swap sims with no problems.

Can't speak on how LTE will work with it in your country.

 

[bozzykid]

You will not be able to enable LTE unless your carrier is Apple supported. Otherwise, it requires a carrier update (like will be required for T-mobile) to enable the LTE option.

 

[apollo1444]

doesn't matter if you country has a supported LTE band, Apple has to approve it first, it took me over 3 months to get lte in mexico. if they do it they'll push you a carrier update OTA or itunes

 

[Diseal3]

I would wait for the next phone if your concern is frequencies. Qualcomm made a pretty awesome radio that covers ever frequency and cellular technology that is used. Can't see them having a problem finding way into phones in the future.

 

[araje]

On the US side it will work with Tmobile right out of the box. Don't need to contact Verizon or anything, just put the Tmobile SIM card in the phone and it's all set. I have a Verizon and a Tmobile account and occasionally swap sims with no problems.

Can't speak on how LTE will work with it in your country.

Thanks, this was very important. So basically the phone can be activated directly with a tmobile SIM card then right out of the box.