I have a family member wanting a 5c/s and I have seen a few on craigslist the past couple days for $300-325 and I am assuming they have a bad esn, I remember reading that the iphone 5 on verizon would work on att/tmobile but wasnt sure if it would if it had a bad esn for Verizon
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Resolved Will a Verizon iPhone with a bad ESN work on AT&T?
- Thread starter mclld
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Yes it will work but I believe the 5s is the only Verizon iPhone that supports atnt LTE bands.
I don't think that will work. To my knowledge Verizon is CDMA and operates on a different radio band and would have to have a different radio card installed.
AT&T is GSM and operates on its own radio band with a whole different radio card installed as well. You can get away with exchanging T-Mobile and AT&T sim cards but not Verizon.
So much misinformation out there. First of all the Verizon 5c will work exactly the same as the 5s. With that said, I wouldn't get my hopes up that a phone with a bad esn will be useable on a different carrier here in the USA.
As of this moment, atnt and tmobile share their blacklist and sprint and Verizon share their blacklist. So a verizon blacklisted 5s will work on atnt.
But I was wrong on the 5c part, I thought it had the same LTE chip as the 5 that the Verizon one didn't support atnt LTE.
I know you are just trying to be helpful, but you need to stop passing out partial info. It doesn't matter if Sprint and Verizon share blacklisted devices, neither carrier will activate the other carrier's phones under any circumstances. As for cdma and gsm ... the 5c and the 5s have both here in the US. Even so, getting a Verizon phone with a bad esn activated on either AT&T or T Mobile is not likely. On the other hand, a Verizon devices with a good esn, will work on AT&T and T Mobile.
If you're meeting the seller in person, meet at a Verizon store so you can check that with the actual phone present. And if they won't meet at a Verizon store, don't buy it.
From what I understand it will work being since the iPhone is a global phone. The thing to check though is to make sure the model phone that you want supports all the bands that AT&T is using.
Excellent response.
This is most likely stolen. If you ask to meet at the Verizon store and he says no, then you have your answer.
Why would his situation not work? If atnt and Verizon don't share blacklists then the blacklisted verizon 5s will work of atnt...
Yeah, it will work without any issues. A buddy of mine does this. Trolls CL for dirt cheap bad ESN VZW phones and picks them up cheap and then sells them to TMo/AT&T users. He's currently using a bad ESN GN3 on his ST line. He only paid $250 for the phone. It's been a few months now.
Before that, he had a bad ESN 5C. LTE worked with this ST sim in it.
However, the phone is technically considered stolen, so I would suggest AGAINST it.
Before that, he had a bad ESN 5C. LTE worked with this ST sim in it.
However, the phone is technically considered stolen, so I would suggest AGAINST it.
bad ESN's will prevent the phone from activating on a CDMA network. if will have no effect on the GSM portion of the radio. an att user just needs to pop in their SIM card and go. unless the IMEI is blocked, there wont be an issue.
theres alot of misinformation and people guessing in this thread. some of you sound so sure, that you are giving the info out as if you believe youre right.
and the phone may not be stolen, it could simply be his friend didnt pay the bill and doesnt want to deal with it anymore. sure, theres a chance its stolen, but it doesnt mean it definitely is. personally, i wouldnt buy a phone that has a bad ESN. it just kills the resale value, plus that one important question of "is it stolen" would bother me.
theres alot of misinformation and people guessing in this thread. some of you sound so sure, that you are giving the info out as if you believe youre right.
and the phone may not be stolen, it could simply be his friend didnt pay the bill and doesnt want to deal with it anymore. sure, theres a chance its stolen, but it doesnt mean it definitely is. personally, i wouldnt buy a phone that has a bad ESN. it just kills the resale value, plus that one important question of "is it stolen" would bother me.
If it's reported stolen I believe it won't get service with ATT or Tmobile here in the US.
theoretically if the cross-carrier IMEI blacklisting is properly working, then yes. but even though its apparently implemented, i dont know how well it works.
No one seems to care if the phones are stolen either; apparently ethics go out the window when it comes to smartphones...and pretty much anything else.
Verizon iPhone 5 will not support AT&T LTE Bands. Yes Verizon uses CDMA, but LTE data services are partitioned thru the SIM card. The VZW sim card isn't there for sho.
If you use a Verizon iPhone 5 on ATT, you'll be stuck with "4G" HSPA+, which on AT&T means anything from 0.1Mbps-12Mbps.
http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE
Clear listing of all the LTE bands per model of phone.
To answer the OP question, a Tmo/AT&T SIM card will work. But the phone will never work on VZW again.
The OP did not ask about an iPhone 5, he specifically referred to a 5c/5s. A Verizon 5c/5s will work on AT&T and T-Mobile and receive LTE just fine ... documented on this forum, many times! AND, it can be activated again on Verizon at any time! This is all an aside from the original intent of the post, but again ... stop posting mis-information.