I have 2 iPhone 5s on Att. My contract is ending shortly. The service I get is bad. I can be standing next to the other person on my account, text or call them, and it won't go through for hours. I had an small emergency that I needed to contact them for and had all calls go to voice mail, which they did not get for hours. Initially we did not live close and this was not an issue. So, I know I have to be paid up and contact ATT to get unlocked, but what happens after that? I have 2 sims from T-mobile that I would like to activate and try with the phones, but will my Att account end when I unlock or do I still have to cancel service? Will the phones still work on Att after unlocking, in case I decide not to go with T-mobile? Any help is appreciated. (Also, I will most likely upgrade to iPhone 6s' in the future, but I don't want to be locked into any contracts right now.) Thanks.
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New To Unlocking...Help please
- Thread starter karl33
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Unlocking simply means you can use the SIM of any carrier, as long as that carrier supports your kind of phone.
T-Mobile supports your kind of phone so if you activate their SIM you will be able to remove the AT&T SIM and put the T-Mobile SIM in your phone.
At that point, your phone number switches to the number that the T-Mobile SIM is programmed to use and your calls, messages and data will go out on T-Mobile's network. Remove the T-Mobile SIM and put your AT&T SIM back in your phone and your number will revert to your AT&T number and you will be back on AT&T's network.
As long as you pay the bills to both carriers you can continue this way indefinitely.
But if you want to leave AT&T you will have to call them and cancel service. If you decide you don't like T-Mobile then call and cancel service with T-Mobile and re-establish service with AT&T.
If you want to KEEP your AT&T number you will need to port out. Porting out will automatically close your AT&T account and establish your current AT&T number on T-Mobile's network (i.e, your number is now a T-Mobile number). No one who calls/texts you will know any different.
From there you have 14 days to decide if you want to come back or not. If you don't then nothing else needs to be done. You just pay your bill to T-Mobile and pay off anything you owe AT&T.
But if you do want to come back then you'd need to contact AT&T to port your number back.
Hope all of that makes sense.
T-Mobile supports your kind of phone so if you activate their SIM you will be able to remove the AT&T SIM and put the T-Mobile SIM in your phone.
At that point, your phone number switches to the number that the T-Mobile SIM is programmed to use and your calls, messages and data will go out on T-Mobile's network. Remove the T-Mobile SIM and put your AT&T SIM back in your phone and your number will revert to your AT&T number and you will be back on AT&T's network.
As long as you pay the bills to both carriers you can continue this way indefinitely.
But if you want to leave AT&T you will have to call them and cancel service. If you decide you don't like T-Mobile then call and cancel service with T-Mobile and re-establish service with AT&T.
If you want to KEEP your AT&T number you will need to port out. Porting out will automatically close your AT&T account and establish your current AT&T number on T-Mobile's network (i.e, your number is now a T-Mobile number). No one who calls/texts you will know any different.
From there you have 14 days to decide if you want to come back or not. If you don't then nothing else needs to be done. You just pay your bill to T-Mobile and pay off anything you owe AT&T.
But if you do want to come back then you'd need to contact AT&T to port your number back.
Hope all of that makes sense.
Every time that I have ported a number out of AT&T they have automatically closed my account.
(Not a family plan)
Right. Same with any other carrier. I covered that in the following paragraph about porting out.
But if you activate the SIM of another carrier and put that in your phone you get a new phone number. In that case, you'd have to call and cancel service with your previous carrier.
This is different than porting out because it does not involve keeping the same phone number.
