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Carrier Verizon iPhone 6 / 6 Plus - Some Locked against International Use
- Thread starter Allthings-I
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I'm currently in Israel, and am having this problem with my iPhone 6 plus. Any fixes available? Verizon was useless when I called them and asked them to PROVE my phone was unlocked. They just gave me anecdotal BS that all of their LTE iPhones are unlocked. Clearly not the case.
Today, I was on a 2 hour marathon phone conference call with Verizon Global Services AND a top tier IOS Apple person. Long story short, I am still unable to get my phone to show up as unlocked on their systems. And they still point the fingers at each other. Something about the iPhone I was issued at the Berkeley store as "not being in their inventory" so when Verizon requests it to be unlocked (even though Verizon swears all their iPhones come unlocked) they can't get the iPhone itself to unlock it self. The IOS guy even called me back a few hours later saying his highest level people did something and then asked me to reset all my settings again. Of course, the time between the two calls was spent restoring my iPhone back to all my Apps and settings
So far I have been on chat support with both Verizon and Apple, been into each of their retail stores (including one in Belfast, UK while I had this issue on my trip) and have talked to high level support people that only they can access from each other. He said they were able to do something remotely and asked me to reset my settings again (goodbye to the hour of time restoring) After a few failed attempts at disabling "Find my iPhone" I was able to restore my settings again. I was then told to go into a Verizon store, or call Global support to see if they can now unlock my phone.
I will call later today and have an appointment set up at the Apple Store in Santa Monica just in case. Why I have had to go through hours of this finger pointing when all I really needed was for someone to replace the phone.
Stay tuned.
So far I have been on chat support with both Verizon and Apple, been into each of their retail stores (including one in Belfast, UK while I had this issue on my trip) and have talked to high level support people that only they can access from each other. He said they were able to do something remotely and asked me to reset my settings again (goodbye to the hour of time restoring) After a few failed attempts at disabling "Find my iPhone" I was able to restore my settings again. I was then told to go into a Verizon store, or call Global support to see if they can now unlock my phone.
I will call later today and have an appointment set up at the Apple Store in Santa Monica just in case. Why I have had to go through hours of this finger pointing when all I really needed was for someone to replace the phone.
Stay tuned.
Same here 
my vrz iphone 6 wich started as a apple loaner will not work for international use . Any cellular carriers in the US work fine but i travel to Mexico often and im out of luck . Called verizon and apple and no luck just wasted hours pointing the finger at each other . If anyone comes up with the solution to this problem it would be greatly appreciated if they share with the rest of us .
my vrz iphone 6 wich started as a apple loaner will not work for international use . Any cellular carriers in the US work fine but i travel to Mexico often and im out of luck . Called verizon and apple and no luck just wasted hours pointing the finger at each other . If anyone comes up with the solution to this problem it would be greatly appreciated if they share with the rest of us .I was able to get my phone to finally accept an international SIM. It was an apple issue and the phone was issued at the Oakland Apple Store. I have tried following up with the IOS person that helped me to tell me exactly what the solution is, but it sounds like it's only fixed from the deep recesses of Apple Engineering in Northern Cal. Here is my case number, maybe you can give to Apple tech and they will look it up.
847973694
However, now that I can use an international sim without the error message, I cannot seem to set up my iMessage to work properly with my computer to send and receive non iMessage texts. It worked last week, tried resetting and other attempts to no avail. I don't see how it's related, but who knows.......
847973694
However, now that I can use an international sim without the error message, I cannot seem to set up my iMessage to work properly with my computer to send and receive non iMessage texts. It worked last week, tried resetting and other attempts to no avail. I don't see how it's related, but who knows.......
I purchased my first phone from the Apple Store and then something was wrong with it so I ended up with a replacement phone from the Apple Store
What's the benefits of having a sim free phone if you need to travel internationally? Thank you
So when you got the original one from the Apple Store which one did you get from them--one for a particular carrier or a SIM free one or some other one?
SIM fee basically will accept pretty much any SIM as long as the hardware supports the particular carrier (the frequencies that are used).
The sim free version is the only true world phone. Sim free version iPhone 6 is Model A1586 and will support every LTE band throughout the entire world. The Tmobile,verizon,AT&T model are A1549 will only support a small handful of LTE bands.
Sprint is also A1586 but is locked domestically unless you can get them to unlock it.
Also, the sim free version is unlocked on all 4 carriers including Sprint.
Via a PM, ill expand a bit more. With the sim free version as well, you can take it to AT&T, Tmobile, Sprint or Verizon and they will all activate it.
If you take a Verizon 6 to Sprint, they won't activate it. Im not sure if its possible (I strongly believe it is) but regardless it still wouldn't support the LTE bands as a A1586 model.
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....Verizon / AT&T / T-Mobile iPhone model vs Sprint / SIM free model = difference of 4 LTE bands.....Far from your description of "Small handful of LTE bands".
The Verizon / AT&T / T-Mobile version is adequate for majority of the world (AT&T / T-Mobile need unlocking). If one has the option obviously SIM free is useful, but only for those that actually travel or travel often enough to areas where TD-LTE is launched.
I should have said LTE overall, not bands. While it may only support "4" more bands, the amount of more countries with LTE that the sim free one supports v the others is a lot.
And also some people like myself are finding the Verizon iPhone to be locked internationally. You will not have this problem with the sim free one.
Two of the biggest countries in the world-China and Japan-are only supported with the sim free version if you want LTE. Which is why I switched to it
To be fair, if it's some weird unforeseen glitch that has the supposed factory unlocked Verizon phones not fully unlocked, who is to say there might not be some similar weird glitch that affects some SIM free version unlocked phones from being fully unlocked? I mean something like that is basically unforeseen in any of those cases.
There has never been one post about it anywhere on the internet whereas the Verizon one has dozens of posts among Google.
The Verizon one affected my friend in Mexico last winter (I was there). Can't risk that chance with the sim free one.
Also, the Verizon one is still attached to Verizon. Its a Verizon (carrier) iPhone that happens to work with other carriers. If you search a Verizon IMEI, it will show up anywhere as a Verizon iPhone.
A sim free one is/was never attached to a carrier.
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I have kind of the opposite problem and admit-- I don't know for sure but...
Korean student visiting in our home for next year. We tried for 8 hours with 3 carriers here in US to get the iPhone 6 to work. Apple call was just as frustrating. The store and phone call, with the first request, were sarcastic and sighing with eye-rolling. The Verizon store personnel were excellent and tried first for 4 hours, then again a second time for 2 hours after we tried other carriers and could not get phone to work. it is UNLOCKED. There is no GSM lock or whatever the hell that is. Very frustrating and an entire day wasted. The student bought a brand new Apple iPhone 6 UNLOCKED so she could use it here and no go. I'm over it. She got a crappy old text only phone and minute pay and can use if on our WiFi. Felt bad for her because the phone there is like thousand (s) of dollars versus here.
If anyone does know something I can do. Please speak up! Thanks
Korean student visiting in our home for next year. We tried for 8 hours with 3 carriers here in US to get the iPhone 6 to work. Apple call was just as frustrating. The store and phone call, with the first request, were sarcastic and sighing with eye-rolling. The Verizon store personnel were excellent and tried first for 4 hours, then again a second time for 2 hours after we tried other carriers and could not get phone to work. it is UNLOCKED. There is no GSM lock or whatever the hell that is. Very frustrating and an entire day wasted. The student bought a brand new Apple iPhone 6 UNLOCKED so she could use it here and no go. I'm over it. She got a crappy old text only phone and minute pay and can use if on our WiFi. Felt bad for her because the phone there is like thousand (s) of dollars versus here.
If anyone does know something I can do. Please speak up! Thanks