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It will work but it may or may not be weird or wonky?

What does that mean? I hope I never come to your store for service:D
Typical Sprint Rep that guesses and makes things up as he goes.
It either works or it doesn't, and if it partially works or cannot connect to cdma then that equals its not compatible.
Plus you guys dont do Volte so how could a 5S gsm only iphone function on the network that you work for?


Thank you lol. I would say something but I'm not going to say it to not offend anybody here..... Sprint is cheaper and service is good enough for me but the reps leave a lot to be desired.



The iPhone 5s won't work with Sprint because it doesn't have the right bands for CDMA
 
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As for the Sprint employees who do not know what they are doing? I don't know what to tell you about that.


This is WHY I said there is no guarantee which is why we turn away most of those who wants to use it on our network because it "partially works".

I dont know how that partially part even functions though. So you get a phone plan but cannot make calls on your phone or texts?
Just data on LTE areas only?
 
You can be a condescending ******* all you want. I speak from experience. :)


Lol what experience? If you had experience you'll know the phone doesn't have the right bands for CDMA for sprint to be able to work. Sorry if I had a phone that worked on only one band put of the dozen that sprint uses than the phone doesn't work on sprint.
 
I dont know how that partially part even functions though. So you get a phone plan but cannot make calls on your phone or texts?
Just data on LTE areas only?



God that would Suck. If this was Verizon maybe it would work but sprint coverage isn't the best. It's good in cities but outside in rural areas good luck getting LTE
 
I dont know how that partially part even functions though. So you get a phone plan but cannot make calls on your phone or texts?
Just data on LTE areas only?

Sometimes it goes through and sometimes it does not go through, AppleJuiced.


Lol what experience? If you had experience you'll know the phone doesn't have the right bands for CDMA for sprint to be able to work. Sorry if I had a phone that worked on only one band put of the dozen that sprint uses than the phone doesn't work on sprint.

Like I said, it would act weird just like AppleJuiced just stated.
 
Well, I'm not sure what to tell you, Grace. I've reiterated myself countless of times. If you want to use a wonky, weird acting GSM iPhone on a CDMA network, you go ahead. I can not stop any fool who would want to that. The phone will work on the network; however, it will be wonky and weird acting.

AppleJuiced stated what would happen.
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I get that part that it acts weird but how could calls go through if there is no active cdma radios inside that phone to connect to the sprint network?
It magically just works sometimes?

I'm not a tech support guy, I honestly do not know that when it comes to phone calls. I've reprogramed iPhone 5S to connect to our network because the customer practically begged me to do it despite my warnings. He came back a week later and grabbed an iPhone 6S.
 
Well, I'm not sure what to tell you, Grace. I've reiterated myself countless of times. If you want to use a wonky, weird acting GSM iPhone on a CDMA network, you go ahead. I can not stop any fool who would want to that. The phone will work on the network; however, it will be wonky and weird acting.

AppleJuiced stated what would happen.
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With Sprint, things are bit trickier. Since Sprint is using less-common spectrum frequencies to build its LTE network, the LTE bands on the AT&T, T-Mobile and even Verizon iPhone 5S devices don't match up as well. In fact, these devices support only one LTE band that's used by Sprint.



Directly from CNET.....
 
I'm not sure why this is being debated. An AT&T 5S is model # A1533 which supports bands: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 17, 19, 20, 25

A Sprint 5S is model # A1453 which supports bands: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26.

This only matters for LTE since in order to utilize the CDMA/3G network Sprint would have to have the device in their system. An AT&T 5S wouldn't be able to fall back to 3G. Now according to a quick Google search Sprint uses LTE bands 25, 26 and 41.

In theory an AT&T 5S could connect using LTE only on band 25, whereas the Sprint 5S would be able to utilize bands 25 and 26. But in the event of no LTE the AT&T 5S wouldn't be able to do anything whereas the Sprint 5S should fallback to Sprint's CDMA network.

Now, the 6/6S is much different but the thread was asking about the 5S.
 
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I'm not sure why this is being debated. An AT&T 5S is model # A1533 which supports bands: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 17, 19, 20, 25

A Sprint 5S is model # A1453 which supports bands: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26.

This only matters for LTE since in order to utilize the CDMA/3G network Sprint would have to have the device in their system. An AT&T 5S wouldn't be able to fall back to 3G. Now according to a quick Google search Sprint uses LTE bands 25, 26 and 41.

In theory an AT&T 5S could connect using LTE only on band 25, whereas the Sprint 5S would be able to utilize bands 25 and 26. But in the event of no LTE the AT&T 5S wouldn't be able to do anything whereas the Sprint 5S should fallback to Sprint's CDMA network.

Now, the 6/6S is much different but the thread was asking about the 5S.



Because the "sprint employee" wanted to insist he was right and give us his helpful service he gives in sprint stores lol. God I heard the horror stories but if he ever helped me I would have no issue jumping ship and going to another company. As it is I've been with all four major carriers in the past 2 years.
 
Interesting debate, I would not buy the iphone 5s at the moment. Maybe later try iphone 6 or later model. Thanks for all the input.
 
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Well, I'm not sure what to tell you, Grace. I've reiterated myself countless of times. If you want to use a wonky, weird acting GSM iPhone on a CDMA network, you go ahead. I can not stop any fool who would want to that. The phone will work on the network; however, it will be wonky and weird acting.

AppleJuiced stated what would happen.
[doublepost=1456292614][/doublepost]

I'm not a tech support guy, I honestly do not know that when it comes to phone calls. I've reprogramed iPhone 5S to connect to our network because the customer practically begged me to do it despite my warnings. He came back a week later and grabbed an iPhone 6S.

Theres a very good reason as to why it will be "wonky and weird".

The AT&T 5S is the same model # that Verizon would use. This means that it's perfectly capable of supporting a CDMA network. But as previously mentioned earlier in the thread, it would need to be white listed to be used on Sprints CDMA network which I doubt Sprint would do. Even if it was white listed it still wouldn't have all LTE bands necessary for a good experience.

If the customer wanted a SIM-only deal I'm glad you provided that to him as I am glad the US is moving more in the direction of buy your phone from whatever manufacturer then take it to your favorite carrier for service. This keeps the carriers more competitive and offers better pricing to the customers if I can buy my phone separately and use it on any carrier. I don't believe you did anything wrong here by selling him the SIM card as you did warn it may not work.
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Interesting debate, I would not buy the iphone 5s at the moment. Maybe later try iphone 6 or later model. Thanks for all the input.
If your intention is to use the device on Sprint, then it's probably best to get a Sprint labeled iPhone or go with a 6 or later as you stated. Let us know if you have any more questions!
 
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The iPhone 5s doesn't not support CDMA with every model
Your pictures show the same model number for the GSM and CDMA models. They all had CDMA radios in them from the iPhone 5 on. The 5S was the first that Verizon was willing to activate a third party phone on their network, and it was at some point during the lifecycle of the 6 that Sprint started to do it. I beleive that Sprint uses some different LTE bands that the AT&T/Verizon/T-mobile version doesn't have so you'd have some issues with LTE, but it would have the CDMA radio to fall back on.
 
Your pictures show the same model number for the GSM and CDMA models. They all had CDMA radios in them from the iPhone 5 on. The 5S was the first that Verizon was willing to activate a third party phone on their network, and it was at some point during the lifecycle of the 6 that Sprint started to do it. I beleive that Sprint uses some different LTE bands that the AT&T/Verizon/T-mobile version doesn't have so you'd have some issues with LTE, but it would have the CDMA radio to fall back on.


One model has the Verizon CDMA and the other has sprint
 
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