What is Unlocking my cell phone

{Unlocked Cell Phones 101|What is Unlocking my cell phone | Unlocked cell phones for dummies|What is a SIM Card|

A GSM phone is not directly linked to you. Rather, it has a removable account card, called a SIM (subscriber information module) and this SIM Card has a unique serial number on it. This is what identifies you to your carrier

Generally cell phone service works so that the unique number in your phone (its ESN) is used by the cell phone provider to identify you. The wireless service provider ‘knows’ that a particular phone’s serial number is your phone and knows to send phone calls to that phone when someone dials your number.

The important thing about this is that you can put your SIM into any compatible mobile device (and just asbout all gsm phones are compatible) and that phone will now act as your mobile phone, because your carrier sees the SIM that is tied to your account in the phone. They couldlnt care less that you’ve swapped phones, all they care about is if they can provide service to your SIM card
And now for the really stimulating part of this. Just as, in theory, you can move your SIM card to any phone, the other way is also true. Any phone is compatible with any SIM. So, if you’ve already bought an expensive mobile phone that you enjoy and have learned how to use, if you change from one GSM carrier to a differnt one, you don’t have to . You can keep the phone you’ve grown accustmed to, and all you need to do is replace the first carrier’s SIM with your new service provider’s SIM.

But, some gsm carriers ‘lock’ their phones, meaning that their phones have been programmed to only work with SIM cards issued by them. Overthrowing that programming – unlocking your mobile phone so it can work with any GSM carrier – is what this is all about.
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What is GSM? Is it different than normal cell phone service? How do I know if I have GSM or not?

GSM is a type of mobile phone technology. The more common type of digital mobile phone service in America is CDMA technlogy, but just about every other country in the world uses primarily or only GSM.

For you as the purchaser of your phone, there is no difference at all between using a cell phone on a CDMA system or a phone on a GSM network. Unfortunately, the two different infrastructures are not compatible with each other so you cant swap between phones if your going from GSM to CDMA or vicea versa

If you have a T-Mobile or Cingular then you are using a GSM phone.

Can I just buy an unlocked phone without signing up for service?

Yes, there are several ways to purchase an unlocked cell phone without needing to sign up for a year or two of service that you mightn’t want. You can simply buy a used or new GSM phone on the internet or a friend or somewhere like that.

If you buy a used cell phone from an individual always make sure it unlocked before commiting to purchase.

You can also buy Unlocked Cell Phones from online stores such as my favorite,J-Cellular or Best Buy

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