[PLUG-TALK] Mobile phone SIM card question

Tomas Kuchta tomas.kuchta.lists at gmail.com
Tue May 14 17:35:46 UTC 2019


Yes, different wireless operators currently use different frequency bands
in different regions.

Phones, however, try to support as many bands as commertially viable,
unless restricted by the operator selling them.

So, there should be good band support overlap, especially for phones
purchased on general market (meaning not from a network operator). Network
operators, in general, have different set of incentives (meaning customer
lock-in).

So, most likely, GSM phone will work on any GSM network. How well, it
depends on if the phone was made for general marker or a specific operator.

CDMA ( Verizon and old Sprint network) is complete lock-in unless you have
one of the few fully Google-Fi compatible phones supporting all GSM and
CDMA bands. They are special cases, though.

Mind you - new Sprint 4/5 G networks are also GSM.

Hope it helps.

For more details, you'd need to go to FCC to see what band monopoly FCC
sold to who and in what region and compare it to your particular phone
sample.

Tomas

On Tue, May 14, 2019, 12:27 Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 14 May 2019, Tomas Kuchta wrote:
>
> > If your phone is "unlocked" and supports the frequency bands for your
> > operator, then any active sim card will work in the phone - and it will
> > get you connected to sim' network.
>
> Thanks, Tomas.
>
> Since I just paid a month's fee to our current MVNO I'll wait until the end
> of this month to switch to the new one (Red Pocket Mobile.) Red Pocket
> provides access to AT&T/T-Mobile (GSM) and Verizon/Sprint (CDMA). They sell
> separate GSMA (for AT&T) and GSMT (for T-Mobile); perhaps each supports
> different frequency bands.
>
> Moving from Verizon Wireless caused me to learn more about mobile phones
> than the miniscule I knew before then. Still, my knowledge is only slightly
> greater as I learn what I must to make better informed decisions and try to
> resolve the irritating quirks of the iPhone6 we have.
>
> Regards,
>
> Rich
>
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