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If i were to walk into a Tmobile store today and buy an iphone for $99 down and $20 a month for 24 months, will the phone be unlocked to use an overseas sim card? If not, how long would i have to wait for tmobile to unlock it for me, or can i use unlock_fusion on ebay for the tmobile version?

mostly t-mobile will unlock it after couple of months; that is the word on the street.

Anyone like to switch from ATT to t-mobile PM me, I have a contact at t-mobile who can help out on switching credit and part of ETF if you needed to pay ATT - that assuming 3G service or LTE is good in your area for t-mobile.
 
I'm late to this T-Mobile party... I have a Verizon iPhone 5. What do I need to do in order to use my phone on their network? And what are the differences between the $30 and $50 plan? I don't even see a $30 prepaid plan on their site... I might just be overlooking something here.
 
I'm late to this T-Mobile party... I have a Verizon iPhone 5. What do I need to do in order to use my phone on their network? And what are the differences between the $30 and $50 plan? I don't even see a $30 prepaid plan on their site... I might just be overlooking something here.

The good news is your phone is already unlocked and ready to use on T-mobile. The bad news is that it will only get Edge and 3G (only if your area has been refarmed, otherwise just Edge).

The $30 plan is at the bottom of the page here, and to compare the plans side by side, click "which plan is right for you" near the top. On that same page you'd just click "bring your own device" to select a sim card (they only have standard and micro so you'd need to cut it to fit in your phone), once you receive it you head back to tmobile to activate it on whatever plan you want.
 
The good news is your phone is already unlocked and ready to use on T-mobile. The bad news is that it will only get Edge and 3G (only if your area has been refarmed, otherwise just Edge).

The $30 plan is at the bottom of the page here, and to compare the plans side by side, click "which plan is right for you" near the top. On that same page you'd just click "bring your own device" to select a sim card (they only have standard and micro so you'd need to cut it to fit in your phone), once you receive it you head back to tmobile to activate it on whatever plan you want.

Thanks a bunch, very informative. Why no 4G speeds though? Doesn't the site say that the first 5GB are "up to" 4G speeds? Does T-Mobile not have 4G?
 
Thanks a bunch, very informative. Why no 4G speeds though? Doesn't the site say that the first 5GB are "up to" 4G speeds? Does T-Mobile not have 4G?

T-Mobile does offer 4G. The unlocked verizon model doesn't support it except in very few select areas around the country. To get the full 4G experience, you would have to sell your iPhone and buy the T-Mobile version.
 
For those wondering, I'm on T-Mobile Live Chat right now and the rep says I can unlock the iPhone I bought this morning any time I want. The only stipulation is that it has to be paid off.
 
From what my rep told me, when the phone is paid off, it's unlocked. Not sure about overseas.

There is a form you fax in once the device is paid in full and they'll unlock it. It doesn't automatically become unlocked when it's paid in full. You also have to wait until the buyers remorse period is over before you submit the paperwork as well.
 
I was at the Apple Store near my house first thing this morning and was disappointed. The Apple Store employees had no idea about the band change and had no stock of pure unlocked phones (I was doing an exchange of the old unlock for new unlock). As I have T-Mobile, I didn't care if I had to get one on the network and unlock later, but they didn't have any 32gb in stock. Not just that, but these buffoons had no idea that the unlocked iPhone and T-mobile iPhone were one and the same and had different cellular bands than the older model.I called another Apple Store that's close to work and swung by there. Best guys ever! I walked in, explained that I wanted to exchange for an iPhone with the 1700 AWS band and he hopped to it. When he tried to do the exchange, it wouldn't work (because they dont allow exchanges to "in-network" phones). However, he said "screw it", refunded my purchase to a gift card, and bought the T-Mobile 32gb with it. As the T-Mobile version doesn't come with the SIM tool and mine did, he let me keep it. Day started of crappy but ended up good :cool:

Are you still in the 30 day exchange period?
 
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To those that claim to have not had any dropped calls with T-Mobile, count your blessings and stay away from Atlanta!

Here in Atlanta, T-mobile is the worst service I ever had, and that includes metro POS.

I have more dropped calls than a little bit and I'm essentially the laughingstock of my job because they have Verizon and get good service, meanwhile data drops out, calls drop, sometimes I dial a number, hit send, then wait up to 2 minutes before it connects and rings.

People have said "you got a bad phone" so I've swapped the phone out, same problem.

Their coverage map says I'm covered, but if I walk more than 5 feet away from a Window dropped call.

Funniest part about it is I got perfect coverage for the first 14 days.

I wish I never left sprint, i had much better service with them. I'm paying my ETF and going to Verizon when the s4 drops.

I'm happy you all are getting service and good service.

T-mobile is a great value if you can get service with them.

Roflol...you're funny bruh. I live in Atlanta (Norcross to be exact, but work in buckhead) and in 4 yrs using T-mobile have NEVER had a dropped call! Your problem sounds isolated as I know others out here who have Tmo also with zero issues. Good for me I guess huh lol!
 
To those that claim to have not had any dropped calls with T-Mobile, count your blessings and stay away from Atlanta!

Here in Atlanta, T-mobile is the worst service I ever had, and that includes metro POS.

I have more dropped calls than a little bit and I'm essentially the laughingstock of my job because they have Verizon and get good service, meanwhile data drops out, calls drop, sometimes I dial a number, hit send, then wait up to 2 minutes before it connects and rings.

People have said "you got a bad phone" so I've swapped the phone out, same problem.

Their coverage map says I'm covered, but if I walk more than 5 feet away from a Window dropped call.

Funniest part about it is I got perfect coverage for the first 14 days.

I wish I never left sprint, i had much better service with them. I'm paying my ETF and going to Verizon when the s4 drops.

I'm happy you all are getting service and good service.

T-mobile is a great value if you can get service with them.

Holy crap! seriously? Thats really disappointing. My contract is up with AT&T in October and was planning to switch over to T Mobile. I live in Atlanta. I guess i'll have to rethink that.

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Roflol...you're funny bruh. I live in Atlanta (Norcross to be exact, but work in buckhead) and in 4 yrs using T-mobile have NEVER had a dropped call! Your problem sounds isolated as I know others out here who have Tmo also with zero issues. Good for me I guess huh lol!

Well I wish I had read through the thread some more. I'll give it a shot. No contract so I might as well.
 
Roflol...you're funny bruh. I live in Atlanta (Norcross to be exact, but work in buckhead) and in 4 yrs using T-mobile have NEVER had a dropped call! Your problem sounds isolated as I know others out here who have Tmo also with zero issues. Good for me I guess huh lol!

Well I work at the Verizon in Lenox mall and while at work my connection will drop at random.

T-mobile may work in Norcross, but in the city of Atlanta, it just doesn't cut it.

Even the guy at the T-mobile kiosk examined my phone and said "there's nothing I can do, I've tried all the troubleshooting steps, it's just the network. Call customer service and get a bill credit" oh yeah, he had Verizon. Saw him in the food court with his Droid dna.

Reason I know it isn't just me is half of my new activations come from people leaving T-mobile due to the crappy service and complaining about the exact same issues I've had.

Some of them took the 14 day challenge and returned the phone to come to us and buy it
 
Holy crap! seriously? Thats really disappointing. My contract is up with AT&T in October and was planning to switch over to T Mobile. I live in Atlanta. I guess i'll have to rethink that.


I lived in Atlanta for a year (travel there once every other month too) and have never had an issue with T-Mobile. I've lived / traveled / stayed in Marietta, Roswell, Kennesaw, downtown Atlanta, Gwinnett and Decatur and always have an incredibly strong connection. I saw 3G on my old unlocked 4S in certain areas but I was using a Galaxy S2 most of the time I was there.

Test it out and see how you like it. The coverage and speeds crushed Sprint and a lot of times AT&T.
 
To those that claim to have not had any dropped calls with T-Mobile, count your blessings and stay away from Atlanta!

Here in Atlanta, T-mobile is the worst service I ever had, and that includes metro POS.

I have more dropped calls than a little bit and I'm essentially the laughingstock of my job because they have Verizon and get good service, meanwhile data drops out, calls drop, sometimes I dial a number, hit send, then wait up to 2 minutes before it connects and rings.

People have said "you got a bad phone" so I've swapped the phone out, same problem.

Their coverage map says I'm covered, but if I walk more than 5 feet away from a Window dropped call.

Funniest part about it is I got perfect coverage for the first 14 days.

I wish I never left sprint, i had much better service with them. I'm paying my ETF and going to Verizon when the s4 drops.

I'm happy you all are getting service and good service.

T-mobile is a great value if you can get service with them.

Drop calls happen more frequently on wcdma calls. Since an overall of data users on tmobile or att network will absolutely call calls to drop since they require the same WCDMA channels. Voice/data at same time.

It forces the towers to bump callers off randomly.

Thus on of reasons att got hosed by the media by having a lot of dropped calls. I had tons of dropped calls in NYC in 2010 and 2011. In Florida especially in suburbs dealing with less people. Maybe had 2 drops calls in past 6 months I can think of. In NYC it was once a day.
 
I made the switch from Verizon grandfathered unlimited to Tmobile. The $30 unlimited data, text and 100 minutes was just too hard to pass up. I ordered my white 64Gb iPhone from Apple last night and selected in store pick up. The guy at the Apple store said they could not activate prepaid, only postpaid. I wasn't planning on doing this but I figured I would ask to share the knowledge here. Prior to purchasing the iPhone I had bought a prepaid sim off of Amazon that was custom cut, see link below. The sim fit snuggly in the tray but I had no problems inserting it into my iPhone. Signing up and activating was a breeze until hitting the payment page. For some reason I kept receiving an error "Payment schedule not selected". Apparently other people have had this problem too so the quick remedy is to purchase a refill card and use that. Sure enough the refill card worked fine and my account was active. This was around 10Pm Friday night when I activated and opted to get my number ported from Verizon to Tmobile. I was unsure how long this process would take and if I needed to make any changes in my Verizon account. Tmobile's website said I would receive a text on my new iPhone once it was complete. At 11:39am this morning (Saturday) I recieved the message and was good to go. I set up visual voice mail and it works fine. My data was not working but a quick reboot of the phone solved that problem. All in all an easy experience. I tried a speedtest inside my house and got pretty lame results, not horrible but pretty slow. For $30 a month I am fine with this as I have strong WiFi and I'm sure speeds will only increase once LTE is available.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009G7AUQ2/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 

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Drop calls happen more frequently on wcdma calls. Since an overall of data users on tmobile or att network will absolutely call calls to drop since they require the same WCDMA channels. Voice/data at same time.

It forces the towers to bump callers off randomly.

Thus on of reasons att got hosed by the media by having a lot of dropped calls. I had tons of dropped calls in NYC in 2010 and 2011. In Florida especially in suburbs dealing with less people. Maybe had 2 drops calls in past 6 months I can think of. In NYC it was once a day.

So what's the solution to the problem ?
 
I wish somebody would combine all of the T-mobile threads into one. This is ridiculous there are 50 threads asking the same questions like nobody here has had an iPhone before. Was it this bad when Sprint and Verizon got it?
 
So what's the solution to the problem ?

Simple. Off load more people to LTE networks. Notice voice calls drop calls down to wcdma even with LTE iPhone.

So those using LTE pure data on iPhone 5 are not interfering with wcdma voice calls.

I am sure drop calls are improving in NYC with AT&T as more and more people get LTE devices.

Verizon CDMA tech could always handle voice better. And CDMA handles tower handoff much better.

But verizon is transitioning to pure LTE voice and data in the next 1-2 years. CDMA voice will be around probably till 2017-2019 at this rate.
 
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