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Are Unlocked Phones for you?
You may want to consider buying unlocked phones if you are a consumer that likes to change service providers very often. If your phone is not unlocked you will only be able to use the carrier that you bought the phone from.
Sometimes a carrier may agree to unlock a phone for a fee or if you buy one that is unlocked, they may charge full retail. Most carriers deeply cut rates for the plans and give you a free phone to sign up for 2 years or more. This assures that customers stay loyal to one carrier. Even if the phone is unlocked it may not work with other carriers. There are many hacking instructions online but that doesn’t always assure that the phone will work properly after following the instructions.
In this article I will give you some suggestions about where to buy unlocked phones so that you can make an informed decision about what will work best for you. Knowing about unlocked phones and what it could mean to you may encourage you to buy an unlocked phone.
Manufacturers build in SIM locks, network locks, simlock or subsidy locks. These are built into GSM phones so that network providers can restrict these phones to specific countries and providers of mobile service. Subscriber Identity Module or (SIM) is an encoded card that identifies your network and details such as:
- Caller ID
- PIN
- Call Forwarding
- User Data
The manufacturers do this so that they can charge higher roaming fees when your phone is out of network.
The restrictions that the manufacturers can put on the phones are:
- Countries (the phone will only work in certain countries)
- Network service providers (the phone will only work for certain network service providers)
- SIM types so that only certain SIM cards can be used
Unlocking your phone
Unless you are an advanced technical person and can upgrade software on your phone so that it becomes unlocked, you may want to do research and buy unlocked phones. Once you’ve decided that having an unlocked phone is something you’d like to purchase then it is time to find out where you can buy unlocked phones.
There are several companies that charge a small fee for unlocking your phone. Some companies offer products or instructions to unlock your specific phone but they may come at a high cost and often don’t always work.
Where to Buy Unlocked Phones
There are many places for buying unlocked cell phones. One site that you can look to for buying unlocked cell phones is T Mobile. Others are amazon.com, Dell Assessories.us.dell.com and Samsung to name a few.
The best advice is to do your research and know your options before you buy just any phone and then realize it is not an unlocked phone. It will be extraordinary for you to be free to change plans and phones without hassle or extra fees.